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Re: Flexbox layout ordering and tabbing order

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Oct 13, 2015 6:38AM

> 3. Authors/developers not having to specify multiple routes, as the less common (Accessibility) scenarios will be forgotten.

While I generally agree, we need to uncover if there are reasonable cases where the visual order and reading order could differ. I usually see the intented order different in two scenarios

1. When a data table also contains form fields. In some cases with a grid the reading order could be down each column but the user may actually want to read across.
2. When a site contains repeated information such as social media tools, navigation, etc. above an article or page. While skip navigation techniques could be used they may not always be available to all users. Getting past these areas to find the start of real content can be frustrating and time consuming.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Alastair Campbell
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:26 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Flexbox layout ordering and tabbing order

Jonathan Avila wrote:

> "It was my understanding from reading the documents that the visual
> order changes should not affect the focus order and the Firefox
> behavior was a bug."
>

I'm not entirely clear on that (partly why I posted), but the IBM proposal to standardise that way was fairly recent.


> "Historically CSS was used for presentation only -- but as I'm seeing
> that ship which I thought was the community was on has sailed away and
> things seems to be shifting away from that approach. "


Two things I would point to for a change:

1. Understanding that people using a keyboard (or equivalent) and looking at the screen need a consistent and understandable order of links.
Especially for switch access.

2. The power of flexbox and grids, where you can switch around the whole visual order. In the test case I linked to there is a three column nav/main/aside layout. Two lines of CSS would re-order that visually in any combination you like. With CSS grids the connection between source order and visual order is pretty much separated.



> If CSS is no longer just for presentation then we have a stronger
> argument to say the CSS order should become focus order -- but then
> what if we want the order to be different? How could the author
> specify not to use the CSS order for focus order?
>

You could argue that the order of items (at a macro level) is presentation, so shouldn't that be represented in the focus/speech order?

But I think the first thing is to define goals. I'd like to aim for:

1. A keyboard tabbing order that makes sense when looking at the page.
2. A consistent interface between different scenarios, so visual-reading, keyboard-tabbing and screenreader order are all the same.
3. Authors/developers not having to specify multiple routes, as the less common (Accessibility) scenarios will be forgotten.

Does that make sense to people?

-Alastair