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Re: Links and Spacebar

for

From: Marshall Sunnes
Date: Feb 3, 2020 12:16PM

Thanks for the input! Case-by-case will have to be the recommendation.

Best,
Marshall

On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 12:59 PM Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Agree with Steve
> If you repurpose a link as a button you need Javascript that checks if
> the spacebar is pressed and executes the onclick event on the link if
> it is pressed.
> You can tie the Javascript selectors to all elements with
> role="button" (something you have to add to links anyway when you
> repurpose them as buttons).
> Note: A screen reader user doesn't care, because most screen readers
> are configured to execute the onclick event if either the enter or
> spacebar are pressed when in browse mode (this can be changed in
> screen reader settings and this does not apply in application/forms
> mode).
> I'm not implying you are only asking with the screen reader usre
> experience in mind (accessibility is about a lot more than screen
> reader users, as we all know and agree) but this behavior is specific
> to screen readers and people testing webpages for keyboarde
> accessibility often fall into the trap of having screen readers
> running when they do it.
> gives a confusing
>
> On 2/3/20, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> > On all Windows browsers (and maybe Mac, but I have not checked), the
> > spacebar scrolls the page down unless the focus is on certain elements
> such
> > as checkboxes and buttons. That said, I have never seen anyone do this
> in 15
> > years of user testing.
> >
> > If all links responded to the spacebar I don't think anyone would notice.
> > Nevertheless, I am not keen on making exceptions like this, so I would
> > advocate against it. It should be easy to only have the spacebar work
> with
> > links that are styled as buttons.
> >
> > Steve Green
> > Managing Director
> > Test Partners Ltd
> >
> >
> >