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Re: Initial focus on search field?

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From: Liko, Todd
Date: Sep 23, 2014 9:01AM

Hi all.

Very good read on this subject. I understand the idea behind making a website more usable/more convenient.

For me, it is about expected behavior and choosing how I want to navigate the website, whether do so by keyboard or using a mouse. When visiting a site, I am not expecting the focus to be somewhere within the page. I do not want someone making the decision for me where I should start tabbing.

One example is when I am completing a form requesting a phone number. It is split into three fields. Sometimes, I must tab to the next field, sometime the focus automatically moves to the next field upon completion of the previous field. Some people like the convenience, I do not.

Todd.

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Michael Bullis, Executive Director, The IMAGE Center of Maryland
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 9:25 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Initial focus on search field?

As a user and not a developer, I too think it's a usability issue. If the way you want visual people to use the site is by starting them at the searchbox, then do it for nonvisual users as well. Google, back in earlier iterations, use to set the focus to the searchbox automatically. I found it very helpful, since that's where I wanted to go mostly.


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Tim Harshbarger
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 9:00 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Initial focus on search field?

I will offer a dissenting viewpoint.

There is nothing inherently inaccessible about setting the focus to a specific field on a page.

It isn't a problem for screen reader users because screen readers don't even always start reading from the top of the page when focus isn't set to a field. I also think that, if a screen reader has spent much time on the web, they won't think a search field or any other field is likely to be the first item on the page.

It sounds like the problem for keyboard users is not so much setting focus to a field as much as it is ensuring a keyboard user knows where the focus is.

Certainly, it sounds like setting focus to a specific field might sometimes cause additional annoyance to keyboard users, but I'm not sure that is the same as being an accessibility issue. That sounds more like a usability issue. However, at the same time, it sounds like the reason for setting focus to a field is in order to make the user interface more usable.

I would actually tell the developer not to do any special kind of coding.
Just set focus to the field and don't hide any focus indicators.

Thanks!
Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Robert Fentress
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 2:35 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Initial focus on search field?

Hello, all.

Do you have a sense for what is best practice concerning where focus should initially be set on pages in complex web sites that contain a prominent global search field on every page?

For our site, the search field appears after an initial set of navigation links, and at this point, changing the order of the menu links and the search field in the code isn't feasible. An original design constraint was that the search field be automatically given focus upon page load, since usability studies showed that most people preferred using search to navigate the site.

However, I was concerned that this could present problems for screen reader users who might not notice the list of links before the search field. This does seem to be a common pattern on the web though, so I wonder if screen reader users would expect (and perhaps prefer) this behavior.

Initially though, I recommended against explicitly setting focus.
Instead, I suggested best practice would be to add, at the start of the page, a single skip link to the main content, and to create landmark regions for the main page areas (including role="search" for the where the search field appears). Screen reader users could then use landmark navigation to quickly get to the search field.

The developer has gotten pushback though, because of the original design requirement mandating that focus be set to the initial search field. He has tried to be creative by not initially setting focus, instead making it so that, as soon as the user begins typing, focus is set to the search field.
So a tab takes the user to the first link in the menu on the page, but typing "a search string" automatically moves the user to the search field and enters the text typed into the field.
This is problematic, though, because some keys are reserved as page navigation commands by some screen readers, such that typing "b" takes you to the first button on the page, etc.

At this point, given the constraints we're operating under, I'm leaning towards just telling him to set focus to the search field, with the thought that screen reader users may expect this sort of thing and figure things out, especially given the landmarks provided.
What do you think?

Thanks,
Rob

--
Robert Fentress
Senior Accessibility Solutions Designer
540.231.1255

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