WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Hamburger menu accessibility

for

From: Mallory
Date: Aug 26, 2017 1:27AM


Hi Mamta,

It's not inaccessible this way, but it sounds a bit clunky to use and
sounds like it would slow keyboard users down compared to mouse users.
So you could argue that, if someone is using keyboard instead of mouse
due to a disability, that the hamburger is working against PWDs... but
it doesn't sound like one *can't* reach all the items with simply
keystrokes. You could say "This menu may be less usable for people with
some disabilities than it could be, in its current state."

The website team needs to decide if this hamburger should follow the
aria menu pattern or not.
https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/#menu
I think a lot of the time, that menu pattern works really well for
not-application-menu-dropdowns and, once people know to use arrows,
pretty easy to use. But definitely pick one behaviour for the dropdowns
and stay consistent through the site.

The tab stopping at the last item is annoying to users if it really does
mean they can't easily get back to the top. In the menu pattern,
wrapping back to the first item is optional if the Home and End keys can
get people quickly to the first or last item. It's unlikely they did so,
but check if the developers added in listeners for Home and End keys.
Not that a lot of users know about using those keys in menus...

cheers,
Mallory

On Fri, Aug 25, 2017, at 11:57 PM, Mamta Gupta wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am testing a webpage that has hamburger menu. After activating it with
> enter button, it opens up with more options.
> Out of those options some of them has sub option that is in collapsible
> state and can be accessses by activating the + sign next to them.
> When I was trying to test it with keyboard, I was able to access menu
> using
> tab key but not the arrow keys on keyboard. Is this behaviour fine or
> this
> is an accessibility issue.
> Also when tabbing reaches the last option in the menu, focus does not go
> back to the first option on further tabbing, instead it stays there. In
> order to go back to the first option I have to use shift tab to go
> backwards.
>
> Is this behaviour ok or it needs to be fixed.
> Please advise.
>
> Thanks,
> Mamta
> > > >