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Column headers are not navigable in grid

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From: Vemaarapu Venkatesh
Date: Dec 14, 2017 9:07PM

Hi all, Greetings!

I have a data grid in my application and when user tabs to this grid focus
lands on the second row directly. The first row as usual contains column
headers and users can't navigate there with arrow keys but column headers
are associated with remaining data cells accordingly. So from second row if
user navigates with arrow keys screen readers announces associated column
headers for the focused data cells. Will that impact someone if focus
doesn't move to row with column headers?

If this doesn't impact, the other concern is the app too have a sort icon
for the name column header where users can sort the names in ascending and
descending orders. As focus doesn't move to column headers unable to access
that sort icon. I tried interacting with that using NVDA object navigation
keys but surprisingly that sort icon seems to be accessible with mouse
alone but not keyboard accessible. What can be the best approach to make
this sort functionality accessible?

Thanks,
Venkatesh