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Re: Accessible, flexible select box

for

From: JP Jamous
Date: Jan 29, 2019 7:22AM

We struggle with that as well. I know it does not answer your question, but
we decided to keep using <select>. That way, the user is in control of his
or her environment.

Creating a select box will require lots of work. Also, no one knows how it
will render with each Assistive Technology. Lastly, it breaks the first
principle of ARIA. If it can be done using HTML, then avoid using ARIA.

I would vote for your choice and do not fully support theirs. Unless there
is a strong business requirement that forces the use of a custom select box,
just don't waste the time and money on it.



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JP Jamous
Senior Digital Accessibility Engineer
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
Isabel Holdsworth
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 5:42 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Accessible, flexible select box

Hi all,

An app that I'm working on needs a select box, and my colleagues are leaning
towards a custom select using ARIA listbox and option roles.

IMHO custom selects don't offer a good user experience on iOS.

But native selects are difficult to style, and especially to apply our huge
range of colour contrast options. We run Chrome in a secure client that
apparently doesn't respect the OS's high contrast mode, so we fake it. But
native selects don't respect our simulated high contrast UI.

Using native and custom selects together and hiding the custom one from
screenreaders isn't an option, as it could then be hidden from speech input
technologies as well.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts or ideas you might have.

Cheers, Isabel
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