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Re: ARIA difficult for non-screenreader users?

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From: Alastair Campbell
Date: May 13, 2013 7:43AM

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. If you can justify a different
> interaction for your users, then go for it - it seems you've made up
> your mind anyway.
>

Hi Jared,

I hadn't made up my mind, but from the usability testing I know we can't
justify removing the links from the tab-order, so the decision is whether
to include WAI-ARIA.

For the record, this was for a 'standard' looking site that happens to have
a lot interactive features. Next time we do some testing I'm going to dig
into whether people know about the other key-commands at all, I'm not
entirely convinced that it is common knowledge even for sites that look
like apps.

My conclusion from what you're saying is that it is not best practice (as
per the WAI-ARIA documentation), but perhaps necessary for sites that fall
between app and traditional at the moment.

Thanks,

-Alastair