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Re: Carousel next and previous buttons

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From: Lovely, Brian
Date: Dec 20, 2017 6:50AM


I tend toward an "inform and empower" policy when it comes to coding with screen readers in mind. I don't suppose any of us think that a screen reader user wants an entire page read out; that's just too much information to absorb, and the user doesn't have the ability to decide what gets read out and when. While this is an extreme example, I think it can inform our decisions on a smaller scale.

I wouldn't read anything automatically, nor would I recommend shifting focus from the slide controls. A carousel, for better or worse, is a common feature that users recognize. A screen reader user who encounters a "previous" or "previous slide" button is likely to examine the surrounding elements and will then discover that they have encountered a carousel. It's the user's decision to consume the slide contents or not. As to shifting focus off the button when it is activated, what if a user wants to advance the carousel by more than one slide? Imagine how irritating it would be to activate the "next" button, have to navigate back to it, activate it again, and so on.