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Re: menus that appear after mouse hovers on link

for

From: Joe Chidzik
Date: Aug 10, 2012 1:29AM

> Perceived issue: Since screen reader users and people with motor impairments
> cannot use the mouse and hover on the link, they won't be able to view the
> menu.
>
> How can we make this menu accessible to screen reader users and people with
> motor impairments?

[Joe Chidzik] Using aria-haspopup you can alert screenreader users when a drop down menu is attached to a linkcontrol. If the menu opens automatically though, using onfocus as Deborah suggested, you may not need to use aria-haspopup.

Some neat examples of accessible drop down menus from Terril Thompson here: http://staff.washington.edu/tft/tests/menus/ Some of these, the YUI and OAA ones for example, work well for both screenreader and keyboard only users.

Because these menus are accessed using the arrow keys, which some users may not be familiar with yet (due to the tabenter behaviour paradigm on webpages), you may want to mention this is on an accessibilityhelp page.

Joe