argument for only ONE set of radio button navigation keys

aloha, all!

in a recent update to the ARIA Best Practices wiki, the following 
was added

<quote cite="http://esw.w3.org/topic/RadioButton">
  * Pressing the arrow keys moves focus and selection.
  * Up or Left Arrow key press moves focus forward between buttons 
    in the group.
  * Down or Right Arrow key press moves focus backward between 
    buttons in the group
<unquote>

i would like to register a vote of strong disagreement of such a 
keybinding -- there should be only ONE standardized mechanism for 
cycling through radio button groups/fieldsets regardless of how the 
grouping is visually presented: 

GJR's PROPOSED CHANGE TO TEXT

1) establish focus on a radio button group through TAB navigation or 
   activation of LABEL or ACCESSKEY (or equivalent) 

2) cycle through radio button group using EITHER the up/down arrows 
   or the left/right arrows; i would prefer up/down, to accomodate 
   vertically aligned languages, as well as keeping the left/right 
   arrows for expand/collapse; 

3) when focus is given to the radio button group, the focus should 
   start with the first radio button in the group, unless there is 
   a pre-defined default "on/checked" state, in which case the up/down 
   arrows go backwards and forwards from the default radio button 
   respectively 

      * UpArrow = move backwards through radio button group; 
        user should have option to be informed that the upper 
        boundary has been reached, or the ability to loop in 
        both directions. 

      * DownArrow = move forewards through radio button group; 
        user should have option to be informed that the upper 
        boundary has been reached, or the ability to loop in 
        both directions. 

4) user can move out of radio button fieldset using TAB to go to next 
  form control or SHIFT + TAB to place focus on the previous form 
  control 

END GJR's PROPOSED TEXT

the thought of using left and right arrows is troubling because 
that is a general gesture for expanding and collapsing tree views,
while a radio button grouping should be covered by up and down 
arrows, regardless of the presentational layout of the radio 
button grouping, and the less users have to use the same buttons
for different widgets, the better the user experience...

gregory.

Received on Friday, 24 August 2007 17:48:36 UTC