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Re: JAWS and disabled combobox options

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Jan 18, 2017 9:40AM

> Looks like the developer should have used optgroup instead of disabled options. The States are groups, but not values themselves.

Except use of optgroup doesn't allow for keyboard navigation using first letter of the item in the optgroup. And optgroup isn't well supported by assistive technology in my experience.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of _mallory
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2017 7:37 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] JAWS and disabled combobox options

Looks like the developer should have used optgroup instead of disabled options. The States are groups, but not values themselves.

cheers,
_mallory

On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 08:09:10AM -0600, JP Jamous wrote:
> Thank you Bryan. That makes more sense to me now.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On
> Behalf Of Bryan Garaventa
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2017 12:06 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] JAWS and disabled combobox options
>
> No problem, happy to help. :) One note for others, the bookmarklet was simply a personal utility I created to work around some accessibility issues I was encountering, but this should not ever be part of any development strategy for making something like this accessible.
>
> To answer a prior question from JP Jamous, the scenario described has only one select element.
>
> E.G Example syntax:
>
> <select title="Choose a County" >
> <option >Arizona</option>
> <optgroup>
> <option> County Name One </option>
> <option> County Name Two </option>
> </optgroup>
> <option >California</option>
> <optgroup>
> <option> County Name One </option>
> <option> County Name Two </option>
> </optgroup>
> </select>
>
> You can quickly jump to California by typing "cal".
>
> However if you try the following instead, this is impossible.
>
>
> <select title="Choose a County" >
> <option disabled >Arizona</option>
> <optgroup>
> <option> County Name One </option>
> <option> County Name Two </option>
> </optgroup>
> <option disabled >California</option>
> <optgroup>
> <option> County Name One </option>
> <option> County Name Two </option>
> </optgroup>
> </select>
>
> This is why this practice should never be done.
>
> Instead, client side scripting should be used to check the value of such options and prevent submission if the intended value is not selected.
>
>
>
> Bryan Garaventa
> Accessibility Fellow
> SSB BART Group, Inc.
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> 415.624.2709 (o)
> www.SSBBartGroup.com