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Re: Keyboard navigation using arrows only

for

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Sep 3, 2014 10:25AM


I understand, my point isn't with your implementation, but with the use of ARIA for this purpose, which won't work as expected for screen reader users.

The reason for ARIA menu markup isn't just to announce 'submenu' or 'menu', but this actually causes specific behaviors to occur within browser/AT combinations, and using ARIA just to get screen readers to announce a specific keyword is an ARIA hack that goes against the spec. Meaning that it won't work reliably across devices as a result.

You would be better served using offscreen text as part of the link in order to achieve this, than you would using ARIA improperly for this purpose.

I don't mean to sound harsh about this, but I see implementations such as these every day, and they never work reliably across browsers and devices when programmed in ways that are not expected by user agents and ATs in accord with the spec.