Re: Proposal to change documentation on tabindex to strongly discourage values greater 0

I fully support discouraging the use of tabindex values greater than zero -
in the interim until we look at the broader navigation discussion.

A related concern is new features in CSS is doing with features like
flexbox and determine how best to address focus navigation automatically.

I can tell you that one way we have addressed this in another document
format is providing a document attribute that allowed the author to
programmatically determine the tabbing order in ODF. This was of great help
for technologies like Impress for Open Office. I am not suggesting that
this be THE vehicle but merely to suggest other strategies. This could be
applied to say an HTML5 <section> or element with role="region".

With technologies like SVG the author is going to want to adjust the flow
of the page and not rely on solely on DOM traversal as the sequencing
mechanism going forward.  This goes beyond "regions". We might want some
sort of connector sequencing strategy.

Rich


Rich Schwerdtfeger



From:	"james.nurthen@oracle.com" <james.nurthen@oracle.com>
To:	Dominic Mazzoni <dmazzoni@google.com>
Cc:	Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, Joseph Scheuhammer
            <clown@alum.mit.edu>, Marco Zehe <mzehe@mozilla.com>,
            "public-html@w3.org" <public-html@w3.org>, W3C WAI Protocols &
            Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>
Date:	10/16/2014 11:39 AM
Subject:	Re: Proposal to change documentation on tabindex to strongly
            discourage values greater 0



While I agree than positive tabindex is normally a bad idea what we really
need is a replacement that is usable rather than forbidding the use of the
only tool that people have available to them to change the focus order.
What we really need is some sort of scoped version of tabindex where we can
control the focus order within a region without it affecting the entire
page.

Regards,
James


On Oct 16, 2014, at 09:16, Dominic Mazzoni <dmazzoni@google.com> wrote:

      +1!



      On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 9:11 AM, Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com>
      wrote:
        +1!!!!!!!


        Matt King
        IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
        I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
        IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement
        Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
        mattking@us.ibm.com



        From:        Joseph Scheuhammer <clown@alum.mit.edu>
        To:        Marco Zehe <mzehe@mozilla.com>, public-html@w3.org,
        Cc:        W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>
        Date:        10/16/2014 07:47 AM
        Subject:        Re: Proposal to change documentation on tabindex to
        strongly discourage  values greater 0




        +1

        Regarding the proposed changes, there is a need to handle old
        markup
        that uses tabindex values greater than 0.  A possibility is that
        browsers treat tabindex=1+ as if it were tabindex=0.

        > [CC'ing Public PFWG list for info]
        >
        > Hello all!
        >
        > This is a proposal to declare tabIndex values > 0 invalid in the
        spec
        > and the validator, or at least strongly advise against the use of

        > positive integers values for this attribute.
        > Rationale: The tabIndex attribute is used to make items focusable
        with
        > the keyboard and programmatically. Currently, it takes three
        classes
        > of values:
        >
        >   * 0: The element is made focusable, and it is integrated into
        the
        >     tab order at its location in the DOM.
        >   * -1: The element is made focusable, but is skipped in the tab
        >     order, but can still take focus programmatically.
        >   * > 0: The items are put in the tab order first, and their
        order is
        >     determined by the actual value. Only if all those elements
        have
        >     been traversed via tab, does the order in the DOM take
        effect.
        >
        > This third class of values has in the past lead to nothing but
        > frustration among web developers and keyboard users, judging from

        > feedback I get in my day to day accessibility work. Due to author

        > error, which mostly stems from lack of awareness, tab order on
        many
        > sites that use tabIndex improperly is erratic and not
        user-friendly.
        > For further reading on this, I suggest a post published on the
        > Paciello Group blog by Léonie Watson in August of 2014:
        >
        http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/08/using-the-tabindex-attribute/

        >
        > Proposed changes:
        >
        >  1. Include explicit advice to not use tabIndex with a value
        greater
        >     than 0 in the next version of the documentation.
        >  2. Change the W3C validator to spit out an error on tabIndex
        values
        >     other than 0 and -1.
        >
        >
        > Associated bug:
        https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=27076
        >
        > --
        > Marco

        --
        ;;;;joseph.

        'Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"'
                   - G. Bernhardt -