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Re: Inappropriate navigation of buttons

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From: JP Jamous
Date: Feb 24, 2017 2:11AM


1. The standard Windows focus of buttons is tab keys. That is why you are experiencing issues with arrowing through them. Yes, JAWS allows you to arrow through them, but in this case, it doesn't seem like it is working. This could be due to many reasons. I would highly suggest you stick with the Windows and browser standards and use the tab key for those.

2. As far as the virtual cursor, remember that the PC cursor is again a part of the Windows environment. Personally, that was one approach I disliked when Freedom Scientific switched to in order to handle browsers and other Windows applications.

What you are dealing with is the fact that the PC mode is passing everything to the browser agent. Whereas the virtual PC is only passing what freedom scientific coded in their DLL files that handles DOMs. I strongly doubt that this is something you can overcome with coding. The manufacturer has to update their DOM module to allow JAWS to work with the particular browser.

Try using Firefox or Chrome and you may notice that the app mode works better with those.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Vemaarapu Venkatesh
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 11:41 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Inappropriate navigation of buttons

Hi all, Greetings!

1. I have a group chat desktop application where there is a main navigation side bar containing Activities, chats, contacts, settings etc as core items. These items are buttons by design and the navigation is possible with up/down arrow keys in sidebar once after focusing into side bar using tab key. JAWS announces location for every button in side bar while navigating through them. But I think it is deviating from the actual standard that buttons should be navigable with tab key as they are interactive elements. Though they are navigable with up/ down arrow keys instead of tab key user is able to make out that there are few more buttons in the sidebar listening to location "1of 7, 2 of 7 etc". Listening to button role user always expect that they should be in tab order so I suggested that side bar items should be navigable with tab key or change the role to tab from button where tabs can be navigable with up/ down arrow keys. Is it suggestable?
2. The app is completely accessible when user turns off virtual pc cursor manually using Insert+Z which is not the actual way to access the application. In default mode JAWS is not reading the elements in the app while tabbing though they are focused. What might be the reason for this?
When we reported this client came up with the solution that they will add a note in the help documentation of the app saying that "turn off virtual cursor to use the app in accessible mode" something like that. But I think this is not the apt solution. Is it recommendable?

Looking for your valuable comments on this and thank you for all the expertise you people are sharing.

Thanks,
Venkatesh