Re: [css3-flexbox] ordering and accessibility concerns

On 06/20/2012 03:26 PM, fantasai wrote:
> I'm going to walk us through some a11y-related questions. :)
>
> Flexbox allows page content to be reordered.
> Two questions arising from this are then:
> A. Should tab-order be affected?
> B. Should speech order be affected?
>
> I'm putting both in the same thread because we have this consistency
> question:
> * Should tab-order be consistent with speech order or visual order,
> if they are different?
>
> Flexbox allows content reordering in two ways:
> 1. 'flex-direction: row | row-reverse | column | column-reverse ',
> which can effectively reverse the order of items
> 2. 'order: <number>', which can arbitrarily reorder flex items

Proposal:

   * Neither 'order' nor reversing affects rendering in non-visual media.
     This keeps them consistent with non-CSS UAs, and allows the author
     to perform visual reordering without affecting non-visual displays,
     which will use the source document's linear (and ideally logical)
     order. Best practice for accessibility will continue to be that the
     source order is logical; 'order' and reversing allow the source
     order to remain logical while the author manipulates the visual order.

   * The 'tab-order' is also not affected by either 'order' or reversing.
     However, in the future, the CSSWG may introduce a way to have tab
     order follow the visual order instead of the logical one.

~fantasai

Received on Monday, 2 July 2012 18:49:18 UTC