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Re: Accessibility of a date picker?

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From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: May 26, 2016 9:12AM

Actually the behavior that aria-readonly="true" on a grid as not going into Forms Mode is a screen reader bug.

A grid is an interactive construct according to the spec, regardless whether it is readonly or not, and it is meant to be interacted with using the keyboard.

If the intent is to build a data table instead, then the developer should be using role=table and it's associated roles in accordance with the table mappings at
http://whatsock.com/training/matrices/#table
This is why the table role was added to the spec, to provide an accessible construct for non-interactive tables.

Since aria-readonly is supported on role="gridcell, role=columnheader, and role=rowheader cells for example, you could easily have a table where some cells marked as column or row header cells are meant to be readonly but others are not, and if you are not allowed to enter Forms Mode on some but not others or if Forms Mode gets booted out when you arrow to a readonly cell, it will impair intuitive navigation.

Please file this behavior as a bug if you notice this happening.

Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
SSB BART Group, Inc.
<EMAIL REMOVED>
415.624.2709 (o)
www.SSBBartGroup.com