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Re: is grouping checkboxes using radiogroup permisible?

for

From: Brooks Newton
Date: Jul 7, 2022 9:04AM

Hi Mark,

What is the expected user experience when an assistive technology user
encounters a radio group?

My thought is that the expectation is that, without additional instruction,
each radio group will contain mutually exclusive choices which are
navigable by pressing the arrow keys. There will be no expectation of
embedded content within the radio group itself that is dependent upon which
radio button happens to be currently selected. The native semantics of
radio groups, and correspondingly, the way that user agents paired with
assistive technology announce the radio button groups do not provide
programmatically available details associated with the embedded content
that is contingent on the current radio button selection.

Now, of course, if you can see the page as you arrow through the radio
group choices you'll see that some choices come with extra choices. That's
great if you can see the whole page and get the gist of what's happening
onscreen when you select various radio buttons . Being aware of these
contingencies provides sighted users with the privilege of making an
informed choice as to which of the radio button choices is the one they
want to make.

If you can't see those contingent, embedded choices pop up onscreen as you
navigate through the radio button group, then you miss out on that
additional information which could help you make the right radio button
choices. That's just my take. I'd love to hear what Birkir and others
think.

Sorry if I haven't replied properly to this thread. I'm just using GMail
and hitting reply. If there's a better way to respond to the list, please
provide those details in the instructions for the Listserv. Or, I guess we
can just assume that everyone "gets" the intended interaction without
explicit instructions and see how that goes. Isn't it just easier for
everyone to have a brief bit of instructive text?

Brooks

On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 2:36 AM Mark Magennis < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> I'm still not sure I get it Birkir. The checkboxes are only of interest
> when you select Yes so if you select the No radio button it doesn't seem to
> be important to know that the checkboxes were there when Yes was selected
> but are no longer there. They're simply not relevant to you. And I don't
> see why it would be important, or even helpful, to tell the user in advance
> that if they select Yes some more checkboxes will appear. If they do select
> Yes then they the checkboxes will be the next question they come across, in
> the same way that if they had selected No the next question would be a
> different one. Am I missing something in the experience?
>
>