WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

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

for

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Jan 4, 2013 12:50PM


Bryan,
Joseph's email above refers to content that is not focusable but
should be available to AT. Aria-hidden will not help there, right?
Also, with reference to Jared's note:
>> All content within a modal dialog is to be keyboard focusable, at least as far as ARIA is
>>concerned.
Is this a practical and realistic assumption?
Sailesh


On 1/4/13, Bryan Garaventa < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> There is an eloquent solution available for this, which is to not use
> role=dialog, and instead use aria-hidden=true on the background content so
> that it is invisible to screen reader users. This way, the modal is still
> the only content that screen reader users interact with, and there is no
> negative impact on navigation in the Virtual Buffer.
>
> You can see this in action at
> http://whatsock.com/bootstrap
> on the Modal tab.
>
> All the best,
> Bryan
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Humbert, Joseph A" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: < <EMAIL REMOVED> >; < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 8:06 AM
> Subject: [WebAIM] ARIA modal dialogs only read out focusable items (formsand
>
> links)
>
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> This issue has been brought up in multiple projects I have been involved
>> with, ARIA modal dialogs only read out focusable items (form controls and
>>
>> links) while ignoring plain text (e.g., instructions) when using some AT
>> software. You can view an example for testing at
>> http://jqueryui.com/resources/demos/dialog/modal.html. I have tested with
>>
>> JAWS 13, latest version of NVDA, and Voiceover (mac OSX) on IE, Firefox
>> and Safari. I can reproduce the issue with JAWS 13 and NVDA on Firefox and
>>
>> IE. Voiceover seems to work ok.
>>
>> We have found non-elegant ways around the issue, but it would be nice not
>>
>> to have to use hacks.
>>
>> I believe this issue stems from the ARIA authoring practices modal dialog
>>
>> (http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/#dialog_modal) keyboard
>> interaction description which appears to only cover dealing with focusable
>>
>> items. So AT manufactures may have coded there products to follow the ARIA
>>
>> authoring practices.
>>
>> What are people's opinions about suggesting modifications to the authoring
>>
>> practices to address keyboard interaction with plain text? Are there
>> elegant cross-browser and cross-AT solutions? Thankx.
>>
>> Joe Humbert, Adaptive Technology and Accessibility Specialist
>> UITS Adaptive Technology and Accessibility Centers
>> Indiana University, Indianapolis and Bloomington
>> 535 W Michigan St. IT214 E
>> Indianapolis, IN 46202
>> Office Phone: (317) 274-4378
>> Cell Phone: (317) 644-6824
>> <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> http://iuadapts.Indiana.edu/<;http://iuadapts.indiana.edu/>;
>>
>> >> >> >
> > > >