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Re: WCAG - Fail or not to - Static text tab-focusable in tables

for

From: glen walker
Date: Jan 1, 2021 12:31PM

I think we all agree it's a bad experience but the key is separating
conformance testing (strict adherence to WCAG) from usability testing.
Accessibility is obviously more than about a minimum baseline of
checkpoints, but when hired to do a WCAG conformance test, that's what
should be kept in mind, as Steve talked about. Some companies are just
starting out with accessibility and it can be quite overwhelming, so
sticking to strict WCAG failures is a nice start, but once you move from
that minimum to a more holistic approach and treat accessibility being
about people and not checklists, then this keyboard issue could be
addressed.

Personally, I would not fail 2.1.1 because "All functionality of the
content is operable through a keyboard interface". The fact that you can
also tab to static text is kind of strange, but does not prevent any of the
interactive elements from being operable. And as mentioned before, 2.4.3
is about the "meaning or operation" of the focus order. Again, it's
strange to tab to static text but the order is still accurate and preserves
the meaning. It's not like the static text order is all out of whack - it
still goes in the order of the table. Now, if the static text order were
in some funky order, then it would fail 1.3.2 (if it was not focusable) or
2.4.3 (if it were focusable).