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Re: Tab navigation for non-interactive content?

for

From: Mallory
Date: Oct 28, 2016 3:03AM

As a non-assistive-tech keyboard user, what I would want are sensible
skip links.

And while I tend not to see it anywhere, when I have some course
software where as a student
I'm expected to be able to move from like a sidebar to a main part of
the page (like changing
an image using controls in a sidebar, then going to the main page to
answer a question
about it, and back again), I would like skip links there as well.
*possibly* a keyboard shortcut
just for switching between areas if the user is expected to do that for
each question might
be worth it, but still prefer skip links.

This allows navigation, uses truly interactive controls (who are
natively focusable and
have roles and names), doesn't get in the way of mouse users, doesn't
add a bazillion
tab stops for sighted keyboarders, and probably would even be helpful to
a fully blind
SR user (and I can't speak for other Mag users but on a sparse-looking
page with lots
of whitespace, having skip links would help me find all the areas I need
to get to
quickly as that's faster than searching as well).

cheers,
_mallory

--
Mallory
<EMAIL REMOVED>

On Fri, Oct 28, 2016, at 12:03 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> On 27/10/2016 20:04, Erik Conrad wrote:
>
> > I know that having a tabindex on non-interactive content is not a best
> > practice and may be unexpected or annoying for users who normally use the
> > keyboard to navigate, but as someone with experience in UI design but new
> > to accessibility, it seems like a fair trade off. I would greatly
> > appreciate any opinions about how wrong (or right?) I am about that.
>
> Coincidentally, I've just recently pushed a change to the W3C HTML5.2
> editor's draft specifically warning that authors SHOULD NOT add tabindex
> values greater or equal to zero to non-interactive elements.
> https://w3c.github.io/html/editing.html#the-tabindex-attribute
>
> Some discussion on this change here:
> https://twitter.com/stevefaulkner/status/789885665253163008
>
> Generally, it's confusing for keyboard users in general (as by default
> only interactive controls/widgets receive focus). It's further
> problematic for users of assistive technologies, as these
> non-interactive elements, when focused, also lack a sensible role (since
> they're non-interactive, and usually are <div>s, <span>s or similar that
> don't get any special announcement of role by AT).
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
> http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> > > >