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Thread: Using multiple checkboxes that amount to a keyboard trap or any other WCAG success criteria failure?

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From: Wing Kuet
Date: Tue, Jul 14 2020 1:28AM
Subject: Using multiple checkboxes that amount to a keyboard trap or any other WCAG success criteria failure?
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Hypothetically if there is a web page with form that includes over say over 1000 checkboxes would this amount to a Keyboard trap fail or any WCAG success criteria failure? Does anyone have a view of this? Would the act of having to navigate through too many checkboxes be considered a failure of the keyboard trap because of the potential of the user giving up and not wanting to navigate through all those checkboxes?

Regards,

Wing Kuet
Accessibility Consultant & Software Tester
Test Partners Ltd
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, Jul 14 2020 2:34AM
Subject: Re: Using multiple checkboxes that amount to a keyboard trap or any other WCAG success criteria failure?
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On 14/07/2020 08:28, Wing Kuet wrote:
> Hypothetically if there is a web page with form that includes over say over 1000 checkboxes would this amount to a Keyboard trap fail or any WCAG success criteria failure? Does anyone have a view of this? Would the act of having to navigate through too many checkboxes be considered a failure of the keyboard trap because of the potential of the user giving up and not wanting to navigate through all those checkboxes?

Purely from a WCAG perspective, this would not be a failure of 2.1.2 No
Keyboard Trap per se, as focus can be moved away from each checkbox.

If those checkboxes are repeated across multiple pages, this may be a
failure of 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks. But if this large number of checkboxes
only occurs on a single page, even that SC would not really apply.

This feels more like a "usability for keyboard users" problem, not
directly addressed by WCAG just now.

P
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Patrick H. Lauke

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From: Steve Green
Date: Tue, Jul 14 2020 3:22AM
Subject: Re: Using multiple checkboxes that amount to a keyboard trap or any other WCAG success criteria failure?
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Wing was being tactful, but the scenario is not hypothetical - one of our clients actually built a page containing more than 1000 checkboxes. Furthermore, they put them into an accordion, which means you can only ever see 6 of them at any time, so you have no idea how many there are.

I mention this just in case anyone was thinking "no one would ever do that".

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Wed, Jul 15 2020 6:26AM
Subject: Re: Using multiple checkboxes that amount to a keyboard trap or any other WCAG success criteria failure?
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You learn something new every day *grin*.
Who in the world would ever think this a good idea?
But, I agree, I have a hard time pinning this on a specific WCAG
success criterion, but it definitely is awful usability for all and
you could say it goess against the spirit of guideline 2.1, keyboard,
as this is almost impossible to operate with a keyboard.
If it had a search filter at the top so users can narrow down the
number of checkboxes to something management, that might be an option.
I'm looking into designing an accessible transaction table, and this
is one of the things we're trying to figure out.

On 7/14/20, Steve Green < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Wing was being tactful, but the scenario is not hypothetical - one of our
> clients actually built a page containing more than 1000 checkboxes.
> Furthermore, they put them into an accordion, which means you can only ever
> see 6 of them at any time, so you have no idea how many there are.
>
> I mention this just in case anyone was thinking "no one would ever do
> that".
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>

From: Steve Green
Date: Wed, Jul 15 2020 6:36AM
Subject: Re: Using multiple checkboxes that amount to a keyboard trap or any other WCAG success criteria failure?
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It's actually part of a search filter already. My first thought was the same as yours, which is to pre-filter those options. In this particular case there doesn't seem to be any obvious way of categorising the 1000+ options other than dividing them alphabetically, which is not exactly ideal.

Steve