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Thread: Tab widgets
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Wed, Jul 06 2011 7:39AM
Subject: Tab widgets
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For those of you who are dealing with, designing, or developing rich internet application widgets, how are you handling tabs interactions?
Do your tab panels change as the user changes focus from tab to tab or do you only update the tab panel when the user selects the tab using the spacebar or enter key?
I am finding advice on using both interaction approaches. I am trying to decide what is optimal. Right now, I am leaning towards requiring the user to press the spacebar or enter key to select the tab. The reason being, if the tab selection triggers an http request to retrieve updated tab panel contents from the server, its possibly going to be confusing to the user if they use the arrow keys to move across the tabs and the panel is being updated slightly behind the current selection. So, you move from tab A to tab B to tab C and, by the time you are on tab C, the content you are seeing is for tab B because the server is moving slow enough that the panel hasn't updated yet.
Thanks!
Tim
Tim Harshbarger
Your Friendly Neighborhood Accessibility Guy
State Farm Insurance Companies
From: Donald Evans
Date: Wed, Jul 06 2011 7:45AM
Subject: Re: Tab widgets
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The recommended keyboard shortcuts for a tabbed interface can be found at:
http://dev.aol.com/dhtml_style_guide#tabpanel
This was a subcommittee of the ARIA working group...
On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Tim Harshbarger <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> For those of you who are dealing with, designing, or developing rich
> internet application widgets, how are you handling tabs interactions?
>
> Do your tab panels change as the user changes focus from tab to tab or do
> you only update the tab panel when the user selects the tab using the
> spacebar or enter key?
>
> I am finding advice on using both interaction approaches. I am trying to
> decide what is optimal. Right now, I am leaning towards requiring the user
> to press the spacebar or enter key to select the tab. The reason being, if
> the tab selection triggers an http request to retrieve updated tab panel
> contents from the server, its possibly going to be confusing to the user if
> they use the arrow keys to move across the tabs and the panel is being
> updated slightly behind the current selection. So, you move from tab A to
> tab B to tab C and, by the time you are on tab C, the content you are seeing
> is for tab B because the server is moving slow enough that the panel hasn't
> updated yet.
>
> Thanks!
> Tim
> Tim Harshbarger
> Your Friendly Neighborhood Accessibility Guy
> State Farm Insurance Companies
>
>
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Wed, Jul 06 2011 9:39AM
Subject: Re: Tab widgets
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OK, I am going to be difficult--not because I necessarily disagree, but because whatever guidance I provide to others, I need to be able to defend--well, not defend...the process isn't adversarial, but I have to be able to address concerns with the approach.
I know that in discussions about RIA widget interactions and how they should work, they looked at how various OS's handled those interactions. With regards to tabs and tab panels, the different OS's do not handle the revealing of new tab panel content the same way. So, the recommended approach in this document isn't necessarily recommended because its universal.
The recommended approach works very well if the tab panel content is preloaded. If it isn't, there is a possibility that the tab panel update can fall behind whatever the current tab focus is. Is that likely to cause issues for people using the keyboard to interact with tab widgets who can see what is happening? It might be an issue for screen reader users too--but since someone using a screen reader will have to select a tab and then move to the panel, enough time should pass for the DOM to be updated with the current content.
So is the potential delay in the update for the tab panel an issue that might cause problems for users or is it a non-issue? If it is a real concern, how are people addressing it?
Thanks!
Tim
Your Friendly Neighborhood Accessibility consultant
State Farm Insurance Companies
From: Donald Evans
Date: Fri, Jul 08 2011 10:30AM
Subject: Re: Tab widgets
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You are right, the technique works very well if the content is pre-loaded.
On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Tim Harshbarger <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> OK, I am going to be difficult--not because I necessarily disagree, but
> because whatever guidance I provide to others, I need to be able to
> defend--well, not defend...the process isn't adversarial, but I have to be
> able to address concerns with the approach.
>
> I know that in discussions about RIA widget interactions and how they
> should work, they looked at how various OS's handled those interactions.
> With regards to tabs and tab panels, the different OS's do not handle the
> revealing of new tab panel content the same way. So, the recommended
> approach in this document isn't necessarily recommended because its
> universal.
>
> The recommended approach works very well if the tab panel content is
> preloaded. If it isn't, there is a possibility that the tab panel update
> can fall behind whatever the current tab focus is. Is that likely to cause
> issues for people using the keyboard to interact with tab widgets who can
> see what is happening? It might be an issue for screen reader users
> too--but since someone using a screen reader will have to select a tab and
> then move to the panel, enough time should pass for the DOM to be updated
> with the current content.
>
> So is the potential delay in the update for the tab panel an issue that
> might cause problems for users or is it a non-issue? If it is a real
> concern, how are people addressing it?
>
> Thanks!
> Tim
> Your Friendly Neighborhood Accessibility consultant
> State Farm Insurance Companies
>
>
From: Dylan Barrell
Date: Fri, Jul 08 2011 12:27PM
Subject: Re: Tab widgets
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If the tab switch needs to load data, this load needs to be communicated to
the sighted user as well. The best mechanism for communicating it to the AT
user as well is to use aria-live. If you write the loading code correctly,
you can inform the user when the server load begins, as it progresses and
also when it ends.
Relatively simple JavaScript code.