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Interdependent select boxes and text box

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From: Andrew Johns
Date: Aug 22, 2014 8:26AM

Hi,

Could someone confirm whether interdependent select boxes and text boxes
are likely to cause many problems with accessibility these days?

Essentially I want to re-create the 2001 UK census groupings. The first
dropdown would contain 5 ethnicity groups, which are then broken down into
a subset of ethnic groups in a second dropdown, populated by the choice
made in the first box.

In the event that they then select "other" in the second dropdown, a
textbox would then be displayed, allowing them to enter the value of their
choice.

I saw an example (here: http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/accessibleinter/)
which shows how you might change the approach and use radio buttons for the
first set instead, but I thought I'd check what current practices are.

I did think about reloading the page after selection, but that feels
clunky. Also, given the reasonably low number of options available, I did
consider optgroups in one single select box, but the number of "Others" in
it (one per optgroup) might make it more confusing anyway.

Anything else I should consider before doing this? Is AJAX/Javascript
generally accessible providing certain things are taken into consideration?

Kind regards,

Andrew