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

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Oct 12, 2018 10:25AM

> If I used tab on this email in Gmail, for example, I would hear an expanded
> menu that says "Show details sub menu" and tab again would show:
> http://list.webaim.org/

Precisely. Those are both interactive elements. This is expected
behavior and exactly what you should hear when hitting Tab.

> So I missed the entire message!

Yep, the message is not interactive or functional, so you wouldn't
expect hitting Tab to cause it to be read.

> This is why tab is not the most useful key command in our navigational key
> toolbox.

Well, it's not useful if you expect it to take you to non-interactive
content (like the text of an e-mail message), but it's a wonderful
mechanism for navigating through interactive elements. So long as
testers and users understand what Tab does and doesn't do, there's no
reason not to utilize it for exploring interactive elements. If they
instead want to explore everything (including interactive elements),
then up/down arrow keys is the right tool for doing that.

Jared