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Controlling focus in a dialog and an app dialog

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From: Karin Carlson
Date: Jul 18, 2018 8:40PM

Hi, everybody.

I have a multi-faceted question about dialogs and apps. I am working with
someone who is developing an application. Every screen is technically a
dialog, but there are dialogs which are more like "traditional" dialogs,
like the "are you sure you want to quit" dialog.

I'm struggling with finding guidance specifically for applications in
regard to three accessibility concerns: if it's appropriate to use a
heading 2 or 3 as the primary heading, where the focus should be placed
upon the dialog opening, and if a dialog ever needs a skip link.

1) The developer thinks that because the containing page ("under" the
application) has a heading 1, that it's appropriate to use heading 2 or 3
as the "primary" heading on the dialogs in the app. I think that when an
app window/dialog is open, it's its own little world, and a heading 1 (or
ARIA role for level 1) is appropriate for the main heading.

2) There is guidance from the W3C that when a dialog opens, the focus
should be placed on an element inside the dialog (like a heading). The
developer is focusing on the entire dialog. As long as the information in
the dialog is read aloud, does it matter?

3) At the top of almost every dialog/screen in the app, there are three
focusable elements before one gets to the content (help, contact us, and
the close button which he's labelled "exit"). This is consistent, but I
find it strange to have three things to ALWAYS have to tab through to get
to the business part of the dialogs that have interaction (which is pretty
much all of them). I've suggested that the developer move the source code
around so those 3 things are at the end of all the other tabbing, but that
might be weird because visually they are at the top. So the only other
solution I can think of is to place a skip link at the top. Do people do
that? Or is 3 tabs, consistently placed, actually not that big a deal?

Thanks very much in advance for your help,

Karin Carlson