Second thoughts on pointer gestures and drag-and-drop

I have some (late) second thoughts on the new SC Pointer Gestures.

If we look at an example of drag-and-drop that has purpose of laying out 
elements on a two-dimensional plane (as in composing a diagram)

https://salesforce-ux.github.io/dnd-a11y-patterns/#/canvas?_k=l04mef

and this construct has been made keyboard-accessible (with added 
instructions for desktop screen reader users via aria-live) and also 
allows dragging with a single pointer (including touch), do we really 
mean there should be an extra mechanism to move the objects with single 
clicks / tabs? This seems to necessitate either

- four discrete buttons at each side of a moveable object, or

- a mechanism whereby the object can be selected / picked up and 
onscreen controls (arrows) are then available to move the selected 
element in discrete steps

I fear we might have gone too far; I fear that adding extra 
functionality for draggable objects to afford single click/tap operation 
might decrease the usability / affordance overall, and may not be worth 
it (quite apart from adding a lot of complexity for developers). Even 
so, the current SC text seems to mandate exactly that, and would fail 
the example above. Since accommodations are possible, this does not seem 
to be a case for the 'essential' exception - but others may disagree.

Thoughts?

Detlev

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Detlev Fischer PhD
Testkreis
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Received on Wednesday, 23 May 2018 10:05:17 UTC