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Re: Combobox sufficiently accessibility-supported?

for

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Oct 9, 2015 12:06PM

> Certainly for touchscreen/AT users (e.g. mobile phones/tablets), comboboxes can present considerable problems, such as not being able to actually navigate
> to any of the suggestions. This is particularly true for the ones that rely purely on activedescendant, as that - from my cursory testing a while ago -
> is not supported in iOS/VoiceOver nor Android/TalkBack.

This is true, and likely never will be since the element that is touched is the one that is being interfaced with by the AT, and that is what aria-activedescendant will always convey.

It is possible though, to use responsive design to detect touch screen devices and adjust the behavior accordingly so that Listboxes with referenced items aren't lost, and to detect the sizing of such screens to dynamically adjust the number of listed items.

An example of this can be tested at
http://whatsock.com/tsg/Coding%20Arena/ARIA%20Comboboxes/ARIA%20Comboboxes%20(Native%20Inputs,%20Editable%20with%20Substring%20Match)/demo.htm

Which uses the ARIA Combobox module in the TSG at
https://github.com/accdc/tsg

This functionality includes standard desktop navigation usage, but also touch device detection to prevent auto closing when focus moves away from the input, as well as size detection to adjust the list size when viewed on a phone sized device versus a tablet. When typing, a basic live region is used to announce the first suggested item.

I agree that when zooming in for low vision usage, it can be difficult to detect dynamic content such as this when it appears, but from an accessibility standpoint given current technologies and what is possible to accomplish with spec compliant responsive design, it is possible to create dynamic Combobox widgets such as these that are accessible to the vast majority of users if programmed with these concepts in mind.


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 2:54 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Combobox sufficiently accessibility-supported?

On 09/10/2015 10:37, Detlev Fischer wrote:
> Hi list,
> I did a bit of due diligence searching but the last Webaim entry mentioning the combobox is more than a year old.
> Would you still consider it best practice to avoid the combobox if favour of native selects?
> I like the possibility to type in a search term and see suggestions dynamically appear in a list below the input field, but I am worried that the experience might still be bad for some screen reader users.
> One example I found is http://oaa-accessibility.org/example/10/ but there may be better ones.
> Any thoughts?

Certainly for touchscreen/AT users (e.g. mobile phones/tablets), comboboxes can present considerable problems, such as not being able to actually navigate to any of the suggestions. This is particularly true for the ones that rely purely on activedescendant, as that - from my cursory testing a while ago - is not supported in iOS/VoiceOver nor Android/TalkBack.

And beyond AT, even for non-AT touchscreen users, comboboxes can present usability challenges on small screens, due to the on-screen keyboard being in the way and not allowing for quick and easy interaction with any results that show up.

In recent projects, I've actually recommended that for touchscreen and small screen use, comboboxes / type-ahead suggestions / results should be reimplemented as actual controls/buttons/lists of results that dynamically show after an input (so they don't disappear once the input loses focus).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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