WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: enter key to check radio button?

for

From: Vaibhav Saraf
Date: Apr 21, 2022 2:50PM

Hi David,

I can tell from my experience both as a sighted user and later as a screen
reader user that Submit on Enter doesn't work the same way for the screen
readers. NVDA and JAWS, for instance catch the onclick event on hitting
Space and Enter, hence you will observe that a radio button or checkbox is
operable with Enter on a screen reader even though it is not operable with
the same key without the screen reader on.

Hi Mike,

My experience is very much limited as compared to the experts present on
the list, I'll just share with you what you observed so far during user
interactions which I did. Most of the users tend to go with the default
keys, like Space for radios and checkboxes, Alt + down arrow for a
dropdown, etc., with ofcourse a few exceptions.

My personal opinion would be to implement the user ask if it is an
Enterprise application meant for a small audience including the user. If
otherwise, I would agree with you that accessibility lies in consistency.

Thanks,
Vaibhav





On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 at 16:32, David Farough < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> I think that verifying that focus is on the submit button makes sense
> before automatically submitting the form.
> A screen reader user will need to hit enter in order to trigger focus mode
> in order to type into an edit field for example.
> Automatically submitting the form regardless of the current focus would be
> annoying to say the least!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Mike Warner
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 2:59 PM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Cc: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] enter key to check radio button?
>
> Thanks, TJ. I don't know which key they want to submit the form. (I sent a
> follow-up email to ask) Since consistency is the rule of accessibility, it
> seems that this could cause more confusion than it prevents. For example,
> keyboard-only users who expect to submit forms using the enter key,
> because that's how it works everywhere else. I can add an event listener
> to the radio buttons (and checkboxes) to prevent the default action of the
> enter key, allowing it to check the box/button, but would that be confusing
> to some users?
>
> Mike
>
> Mike Warner
> Director of IT Services
> MindEdge, Inc.
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 2:32 PM TJ McElroy < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> > Hi Mike,
> >
> > I do think that it is a reasonable request to have the enter key check a
> > button,
> > however it should also be able to submit the form.
> >
> > Your user does have a point, that you should allow for many different
> ways
> > to use the form
> >
> >
> > Not to read to much into your question, but if your user does not want
> the
> > enter key to submit the form, what key do they suggest?
> >
> > TJ
> >
> >
> > On 4/21/2022 1:37 PM, Mike Warner wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > we have a client who was saying that we should also allow the enter key
> to
> > check a radio button and not to let that enter key submit the form on
> > the page. They said that we should be prepared for however a keyboard
> user
> > may try to check the button. I explained that spacebar is the standard
> key
> > for that and sent the W3C page that talks about it. Has anyone else been
> > asked to accept the enter key to check a radio button? Is it a
> reasonable
> > request?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike
> >
> > Mike Warner
> > Director of IT Services
> > MindEdge, Inc.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> >
> >
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