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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 8:58AM

Sometimes components only work if you put the screen reader into "forms mode" or "application mode", but there is no way to know that you need to do this. For instance, I often see this with sliders, date pickers and other custom controls.

Sometimes, the website is designed to force the screen reader into "application mode" but the user won't be expecting this and won't understand what's happening. All they know is that the arrow keys don't behave as normal and the shortcuts no longer work.

There are some valid reasons for using "application mode" but my experience has been that it's usually a bad user experience so it should be used judiciously.

This is exactly why I constantly advocate that developers and testers should spend time observing real users of assistive technologies. You don't need to wait for a formal user testing project - I did this 15 years ago by making contact with screen reader users via disability support groups and paying a nominal amount to visit and watch them for a few hours.

Steve