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Re: ARIA modal dialogs only read out focusable items (forms and links)

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Jan 4, 2013 9:22AM

The behavior you describe is correct. All content within a modal
dialog is to be keyboard focusable, at least as far as ARIA is
concerned. This, of course, is not the reality (and, I would argue, is
the exception for most modal dialogs). One suboptimal solution it to
somehow make the non-focusable text focusable and then convey this
non-standard keyboard interaction to the user.

Simply omitting the role="dialog" or "alertdialog" on the modal
element will keep the screen reader from entering application mode
(assuming the dialog is not within another element that would trigger
application mode). This would allow the screen reader to navigate all
elements within the dialog. The disadvantage of this approach is that
other navigation mechanisms are also allowed, which makes it very easy
for the user to navigate away from the modal dialog to other page
elements - hitting H to navigate headings, for example, would not
constrain the user to headings within the dialog. This has potential
to cause great confusion.

There is no perfect solution to these issues (that I'm aware of). It
seems to me that there should be some mechanism for easily
navigating/reading non-focusable elements while in application mode
dialog windows (and tab panels, etc.)

Jared