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Re: Where Does The Idea Screen Reader Users Use Tab for Main Navigation Come From?

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From: Steve Green
Date: Oct 11, 2018 8:05AM

When you use the Tab key to navigate, only focusable elements receive focus, such as links and form controls. By contrast, when you use the arrow keys to navigate through the virtual object model, you can access all the content. Furthermore, in "virtual cursor mode", focusable elements are announced differently.

The consequence is that testing a website by using only the Tab key tells you nothing about how the website will behave in "virtual cursor mode".

A couple of seconds ago on another email list, a blind person said "We've got some internal services, that were purchased from an external provider. The content is forcing screen readers to run in application mode, which was assumed to be ok as screen reader users only use the tab key right?" He is very, very unhappy about that.

The reason that "application mode" is a bad experience when used inappropriately, is that all keystrokes are passed directly to the browser. You can't use any of the usual shortcuts such as pressing H to jump to the next heading. You also can't use the arrow keys to read word by word or letter by letter.

Steve