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Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)

From: Angela French
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 12:12PM
Subject: double click without mouse on web page
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Can anyone please tell me how a non-mouse-user would handle a double-click requirement for an element on a webpage? What barriers does this present?

Thank you!



Angela French
Internet Specialist
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.checkoutacollege.com/

From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 12:23PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Angela French wrote:
> Can anyone please tell me how a non-mouse-user would handle a double-click requirement for an element on a webpage?

There's no way to produce a double click event without a mouse. I can
think of no reason why double click would be necessary.

Jared

From: Angela French
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 12:39PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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Here is the context in the web app. The user types into a text field and clicks an "Add" button at the right end of the text field. The text that they entered is then displayed in the next form field on the page. This can be done multiple times, thus building a "list" in the second form field. If the user wants to remove an item from the list, they select it and double-click to make it "disappear" from the text box (list). I hope my description is adequate. I'm describing it as a literally see it. I have been unable to make this happen with keyboard only, but then I'm not very keyboard savvy.

Angela


>On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Angela French wrote:
>> Can anyone please tell me how a non-mouse-user would handle a double-
>click requirement for an element on a webpage?
>
>There's no way to produce a double click event without a mouse. I can think
>of no reason why double click would be necessary.
>
>Jared
>>>messages to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 12:49PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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Double-clicking in a web context is extremely uncommon, so most users won't
even think to do it. The uncommonness of double-clicking isn't strictly an
accessibility issue. It's more of a usability issue. Single-clicking is
definitely a convention in web contexts, and it's generally a bad idea to
require users to do something that they're not used to doing, and that they
probably won't even think to try to do.

But the inability to double-click with a keyboard is definitely an
accessibility issue.

Usually it's best to stick with events triggered by focus (onfocus or
onblur) or single-click (onclick).

Paul Bohman, PhD
Director of Training
Deque Systems, Inc
703-646-0514, ext.121


On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Here is the context in the web app. The user types into a text field and
> clicks an "Add" button at the right end of the text field. The text that
> they entered is then displayed in the next form field on the page. This
> can be done multiple times, thus building a "list" in the second form
> field. If the user wants to remove an item from the list, they select it
> and double-click to make it "disappear" from the text box (list). I hope
> my description is adequate. I'm describing it as a literally see it. I
> have been unable to make this happen with keyboard only, but then I'm not
> very keyboard savvy.
>
> Angela
>
>
> >On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Angela French wrote:
> >> Can anyone please tell me how a non-mouse-user would handle a double-
> >click requirement for an element on a webpage?
> >
> >There's no way to produce a double click event without a mouse. I can
> think
> >of no reason why double click would be necessary.
> >
> >Jared
> >> >> >messages to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> > > >

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 3:15PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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2012-12-20 21:39, Angela French wrote:

> Here is the context in the web app. The user types into a text field
> and clicks an "Add" button at the right end of the text field. The
> text that they entered is then displayed in the next form field on
> the page. This can be done multiple times, thus building a "list" in
> the second form field. If the user wants to remove an item from the
> list, they select it and double-click to make it "disappear" from the
> text box (list).

There are two basic aspects here.

A browser, or a browser engine used to run an application, should
provide methods for producing events like double click using keyboard
only. This is expressed in user agent accessibility guidelines, but I'm
afraid browsers haven't made much progress in this area.

Thus, another aspect becomes relevant. If you use a double click event
handler, you should also have a suitable event handler with the same
processing for keyboard events. At the very simplest, you would have
both an ondblclick handler and an onkeypress handler. It is difficult to
say, though, what the keyboard event should really be. You could require
that a specific key be used, like the "R" key for remove. But you cannot
even know whether the keyboard has such a key; the user might be using a
Greek keyboard with no keys for Latin letters.

Yucca

From: Angela French
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 3:38PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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>There are two basic aspects here.
>
>A browser, or a browser engine used to run an application, should provide
>methods for producing events like double click using keyboard only. This is
>expressed in user agent accessibility guidelines, but I'm afraid browsers
>haven't made much progress in this area.
>
>Thus, another aspect becomes relevant. If you use a double click event
>handler, you should also have a suitable event handler with the same
>processing for keyboard events. At the very simplest, you would have both
>an ondblclick handler and an onkeypress handler. It is difficult to say, though,
>what the keyboard event should really be. You could require that a specific
>key be used, like the "R" key for remove. But you cannot even know whether
>the keyboard has such a key; the user might be using a Greek keyboard with
>no keys for Latin letters.
>
>Yucca


We found this URL on the BBC "My Way" site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/guides/keyboard_mouse/computer/win/xp/index.shtml#howtouse ), but it doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps I'm not doing the set up correctly.

Angela

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Dec 20 2012 4:07PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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2012-12-21 0:38, Angela French wrote:

> We found this URL on the BBC "My Way" site
> (http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/guides/keyboard_mouse/computer/win/xp/index.shtml#howtouse
> ), but it doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps I'm not doing the set
> up correctly.

Interesting. I got it working very simply on Windows 7, after guessing
correctly what the correspondences are - it was really just one checkbox
in the settings, and now I could use the numeric keypad to simulate a
mouse, including double clicking.

Yucca

From: Iaffaldano, Michelangelo
Date: Fri, Dec 21 2012 12:34PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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It's not just that double-clicking is virtually unknown in the browser; it's also that "double click = remove" is unheard of in interaction design. It should be pretty straightforward to design a more usable and accessible alternative for such a basic function. Patterns abound.

Michelangelo Iaffaldano

From: Brendan McKeon
Date: Sun, Dec 23 2012 10:36PM
Subject: Re: double click without mouse on web page
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Angela, the web page you reference below is about Mouse Keys, a feature
built into Windows (Mac has a similar feature) that allows very basic use of
mouse via keyboard. But it is tedious to use, and only considered a last
resort, used to access apps that do not have proper keyboard support.
Additionally, it is really only useful for sighted keyboard users, as the
user needs to be aware of where the mouse pointer is, so it is of little or
no use for screenreader users. An app that relies on Mouse Keys for keyboard
access is not keyboard accessible.


The real question here is not how to double-click without a mouse; the
question is what is your app's keyboard interface that allows items to be
deleted without requiring double-clicking.


Some possible options here, each which have pros and cons:

If these are items in a SELECT list or some other type of listbox, then the
simplest option may be to have a 'delete selected' button which deletes the
currently selected item.

One option that is used by many email web applications (eg Hotmail, gmail)
is to have a checkbox on each item, and then a button elsewhere on the page
to delete the selected item(s). This is useful where there are other
operations that can be performed on groups of items.

Another option is to have a 'delete' button associated to each item. Some
web apps use a small 'X' icon at the top-right of each item for this
purpose. This UI itself needs to be keyboard and screenreader accessible,
including exposing appropriate text for the delete icon.

These two techniques do require extra UI elements for each item, but have
the benefit of making the functionality discoverable to all users.

Adding keyboard event handler to support for the Delete key is another
option, although this would need to be documented on the page as it is not
discoverable by itself.

As others have noted, using double click has its own set of problems: on the
desktop, double-click usually means to do the default action or to use the
item. For example, double-clicking an icon on the desktop in Windows or Mac
activates the program or document; it certainly doesn't delete it!


Brendan.