Re: Thoughts on posinset and setsize with respect to menus with separators?

Should we have subgroups? For example, if screen reader announced when you
enter into menu, "menu of 6 items, 3 subgroups, "Sheets help", 1 of 1,
first subgroup".

On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com> wrote:

> Hey all.
>
> Today is another Remove Hacks from Orca Day. :) Today's Featured Hack to
> Kill is related to posinset and setsize for menus, which was put into
> place because what at least some users expect does not seem to jive with
> what I'm seeing in the wild. Two examples, one from Google Docs and one
> from Firefox, both functionally the same.
>
> In Google Docs' Sheets, there is a Help menu with the following
> on-screen items:
>
> 1 "Sheets Help"
> 2 non-navigable separator
> 3 "Send feedback to Google"
> 4 non-navigable separator
> 5 "Function list"
> 6 "Keyboard shortcuts"
>
> To me, there are four menu items: That's how it looks visually. And
> non-visually, if I press Alt+Shift+H in the hopes of finding a
> particular item, I can press Down Arrow four times before it's time to
> give up if I haven't found it.
>
> As for the posinset and setsize values, they are:
>
> Sheets Help: posinset 1, setsize 1
> Send feedback to Google: posinset 1, setsize 1
> Function list: posinset 1, setsize 2
> Keyboard shortcuts: posinset 2, setsize 2
>
> I can understand the rationale for these values: There are visual
> separators grouping things. Though it's not a strong grouping. If a
> subset of the menu's items were really a distinct group, I'd expect them
> to be contained in a submenu. However, a screen reader presenting the
> position of these items would say something like "Sheets Help. 1 of 1"
> possibly leading the user to conclude that the desired item (Keyboard
> shortcuts) is not in the Help menu.
>
> Similarly, the Firefox File menu is divided into four groups with
> non-navigable separators, and Firefox exposes posinset and setsize
> values based on those weak-grouping subdivisions. So I'm thinking this
> is indeed by design. But is this design really what we (and users) want?
>
> Because of this "feature," Orca is ignoring posinset and setsize for
> menu items. Orca shouldn't do that, and I plan to rip that out. But when
> I do, I anticipate Orca users will complain because the group to them is
> the set of menu items in the menu; not the subsets delineated by the
> non-navigable separators, and the post-hack-removal presentation of
> menus in Firefox and web apps will be inconsistent with menus from the
> rest of the platform.
>
> Curious as to what you all think. Thanks!
> --joanie
>
>