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Thread: Accessible AJAX type form controls...
Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)
From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Thu, Aug 30 2007 4:30PM
Subject: Accessible AJAX type form controls...
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Has anyone seen a good, accessible implementation of a +/- type form
controls?
For instance, let's say you have an advanced search feature where you
can add different variables to search by. It starts with one field
shown, but if you click the + sign to the right, you can add another
(or remove them)? If the field is added below the area of the page
where the user's focus is, will the newer AT read it? Or do they
still not know it's there. (I'm guessing they still don't know it's
there but am hoping things have been changing while my head was turned.)
Is it better to create the form fields when the page loads, but keep
them hidden, and then show them (toggle them to a visible state) by
clicking the + button? (my guess)
Stef.
---
Stephanie Sullivan
http://www.w3conversions.com
Dreamweaver Task Force for WaSP
http://www.communitymx.com
From: Hausler,Jesse
Date: Tue, Sep 11 2007 1:10PM
Subject: Re: Accessible AJAX type form controls...
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Yahoo! Has a pretty decent treeview control:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/default_tree_clean.html
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/index.html
It is keyboard accessible, but the + and - sign do not have ALT attributes. When you turn Styles off, the tree view still works well with the keyboard, but you lose the visual heirarchy of the nodes. You can aid this by including text detailing the branch each item is on/within.
Jesse Hausler
From: Steve Green
Date: Tue, Sep 11 2007 1:30PM
Subject: Re: Accessible AJAX type form controls...
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This is only partially an AT problem. We encounter pages like this in user
testing, and a more significant problem is that a blind user cannot form and
maintain a mental model of the page. They might know that a link expands or
collapses some content but they don't know how much content is being
revealed or hidden.
One technique I have seen is to expand all the nodes then use a keyword
search to find what they want. It's painfully slow if there are a lot of
nodes, and of course they don't know how many nodes there are till they get
to the last one.
I would look for an alternative way of building the page. It is difficult
enough to form a mental model of a page, and to do so when the page is
changing will be beyond some users.
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Tue, Sep 11 2007 2:10PM
Subject: Re: Accessible AJAX type form controls...
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It might be more accessible if they used ordered or unordered lists to
construct the tree. That would at least provide some indication of how
many nodes are in each branch. It would also help if it indicated to
the screen reader which items are expanded and collapsed--like you
mentioned.
Is it an option to alter the javascript that generates the treeview?
>Yahoo! Has a pretty decent treeview control:
>http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/default_tree_c
>lean.html
>http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/index.html
>
>It is keyboard accessible, but the + and - sign do not have
>ALT attributes. When you turn Styles off, the tree view still
>works well with the keyboard, but you lose the visual
>heirarchy of the nodes. You can aid this by including text
>detailing the branch each item is on/within.
Tim