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Re: ARIA tabs interaction

for

From: Detlev Fischer
Date: Apr 28, 2016 10:13AM

The best practice (to use arrow keys within tab lists for focuusing tabs) has always be conceptually difficult as there is no clear conceptual separation of tabbed navigation areas where you expect tabbing to work, and tab-panel like structures where (accorfding to ARIA best practices) arrow keys should be used. That is why many developers chose to support tabbing to tabs nad you find very different implementations with variants regarding the use of ARIA. For menus proper, i.e. the Menubar widget that really implement an application pulldowen menu like https://hanshillen.github.io/jqtest/#goto_menubar the situation is different.

So to answer the question, I personally don't see it as wrong to allow the user to tab through the top-level menu items, certainly niot for navigation menus, and I I see definite usability advantages of supporting both arrowing and tabbing for tabs in tab panels even if this deviates from ARIA best practice.

Detlev

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Detlev Fischer
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Joseph Sherman schrieb am 28.04.2016 16:29:

> The design guide for ARIA menu tabs uses the "Tab" key to get into the tabs
> list, and then the arrow keys to move through the menu tabs and menu items. In
> my experience users, especially without a screen reader, expect the "Tab" key
> to move to the next menu Tab and are confused when the "Tab" key skips the menu
> tabs. Is it "wrong" to follow the guide but allow the user to tab through the
> top-level menu items?
>
>
> Joseph
>
> > > > >