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Re: How useful is the datalist element?

for

From: Jeremy Echols
Date: May 30, 2017 8:34AM


I'm using it pretty much exactly like the w3schools page (https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_datalist.asp), except that I've also got an aria-describedby in there. Their "try it yourself" page seems to have the same problem mine has: too much context is re-read on each use of the down-arrow.

And then there's *zero* Safari support for some reason, which makes it just a standard input box for anybody using Apple products.

I tried out an "accessible combobox" from http://oaa-accessibility.org/examplep/combobox2/, and it actually seems to be worse; NVDA just reads the top two items from the list without notifying me as I scroll through it.

It just seems like the "combo box" concept has been around so long there has to be something that works. But the datalist element falls short. At least for now.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2017 9:32 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How useful is the datalist element?

How are you using the <datalist> element?
Are you using it with the list attribute of the <input> element?


I think it is going to be highly useful but, just like with many HTML5 elements and attributes, the browser and assistive technology support is not quite there yet.
It is a frustrating journey, but if we can keep filing bugs and have this fixed, the payoff in terms of accessibility of complex components is going to be enormous.


On 5/26/17, Jeremy Echols < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> This is very disappointing to hear. Thanks for the response.
>
> I don't know enough about the accessibility APIs to know what kind of
> bug to file. I'm assuming the browser is sending the wrong
> information or too much information or something, but is there some
> way to see exactly what NVDA is being told by the browser? And I'm
> not sure what the expected behavior would even be. It seems that the
> concept of a "combo box" hasn't been filled in yet by the w3c "aria practices" authors:
> https://github.com/w3c/aria-practices/issues/31.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On
> Behalf Of Chaals is Charles McCathie Nevile
> Sent: Friday, May 26, 2017 3:32 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How useful is the datalist element?
>
> Interesting question - coincidentally, today someone proposed a
> different improvement by allowing grouping:
> https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/932
>
> My sense is that implementation is still immature. And not very good.
> File bugs on browsers...
>
> cheers
>
> On 27/05/17 00:20, Jeremy Echols wrote:
>> It seems like being native HTML, it would be pretty accessible, but
>> in my testing with Firefox and NVDA, it seems like it's... just painful to use.
>> For instance, NVDA doesn't notify me when typeahead options show up,
>> but worse, when I use the down-arrow to start selecting items, it
>> re-reads the input label and aria-describedby text... on every single
>> down-arrow selection.
>>
>> Are there JavaScript typeaheads which are better? Is support for
>> datalist just at such a bad point that it shouldn't be used?
>> >> >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>> >
> --
> Charles McCathie Nevile - standards - Yandex
> <EMAIL REMOVED> - Find more at http://yandex.com
>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


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