WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships: what about inaccessible drop-down menus?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Aug 11, 2020 10:27AM


1.3.1 is one of those that, if you look hard enough, can potentially
apply to a lot of different types of failures. I think in most cases (in
my experience at least) auditors use 1.3.1 mostly to fail
structure/relationship, but not things like conveying state (and leave
that for 4.1.2, assuming we're talking about interactive controls/widgets).

The fact that something *is* a dropdown, and whether it's expanded or
collapsed, I'd usually put under 4.1.2. The actual structure of the
dropdown itself, if incorrect, I'd pop under 1.3.1.

(And of course, the keyboard aspect is 2.1.1)

There's often a bit of overlap in these interpretations, and depends on
how "must fail this under all the relevant SCs" you are when
auditing/reporting. Comes down to consistency in reporting, more than
anything else, I'd say.

P

On 11/08/2020 15:07, Jim Byrne Accessible Web Design wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just wondering what your thoughts are on this:
>
> Re: Understanding Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships
>
> This success criteria is about ensuring that, 'information and relationships that are implied by visual or auditory formatting are preserved when the presentation format changes.'
>
> So would a drop-down menu that is inaccessible to screen readers (and keyboards users) mean this checkpoint fails?
>
> There's no indication that the checkpoint is designed to include this kind of issue, as it refers to tables, colour, forms with required fields - and the robustness of these - to different presentation.
>
> Clearly the structure of the menu and the relationship between the the top-level link and the sub-links in the pull-down menu does not survive - when the menu is being access by a screen reader. So it should be a fail?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Sorry if I'm missing something here.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
>
>
>
> > > > >

--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke