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Re: ARIA difficult for non-screenreader users?

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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: May 13, 2013 7:14AM

On 13/05/2013 14:04, Jared Smith wrote:
> Again, once users understand this standard interaction pattern (this
> is, by the way, the standard interaction for most software tab
> panels), then things will work much smoother. Continuing to provide
> non-standard interactions just perpetuates the frustration, though I
> understand that in your case you don't want to be the one to hand hold
> users into learning this interaction.

I think part of the problem is that the line between "Application" and
"Interactive" general web content (tab panels, dropdown menus, etc) is
quite blurry, and ARIA's new interaction model is being used in the wild
on regular sites. And conceptually, keyboard users see applications (for
instance, the way menus work/are activated in native applications) and
web content (the equivalent being a dropdown menu on a webpage) as
distinct, and that the latter uses TAB/SHIFT+TAB by default. Couple with
that the fact that the arrow key interaction isn't actually baked into
browsers and requires extra JS, which may or may not be present, or work
in exactly the same expected way on sites...and this adds to user
confusion. Perhaps a combination may still be the best option (such as
in the case of a dropdown, allowing users to TAB through the top-level
buttons, and on activation open the menu and allow both TAB and arrow
key up/down navigation, but also allow TABing out of it to the next menu
button and allowing arrow left/right to move to and open adjacent
menus...if that makes sense).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]

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