- From: Paul Bohman <paulb@cc.usu.edu>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 00:20:43 -0400
- To: Joe Clark <joeclark@joeclark.org>
- Cc: WAI-GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Joe Clark wrote: > A "keyboard user" might be sighted and can simply read the text. > > I would like to see results from actual testing proving that current > screen readers do not enunciate <optgroup> text. Absent that, it's a > vapourware objection. A keyboard user could certainly be sighted, but if that person is using only the keyboard, that person cannot read the optgroup label in the current browsers that I am most familiar with. It doesn't take an advanced test to realize this is the case. Just use your keyboard (I'm talking about Windows machines at the moment) to access a drop-down list that uses optgroup. Mozilla-based browsers, IE, and Opera only show you the options that you can actually choose. Since you can't actually choose an optgroup label, the browser skips over these items entirely. You can only see one item at a time in a Windows drop-down list when you use the keyboard, and since optgroup labels are "unselectable" they are never shown to the user. Of course, mouse users can see them just fine, because the full list pulls down. In other words, the browsers have two different kinds of behaviors: one for mouse access (showing the full drop down menu) and one for keyboard access (showing one item at a time). From what I remember about IE on Macs, the behavior is somewhat different, with the optgroup labels acting as a submenu, with flyout menus to the side. I don't have a Mac available to me at the moment (I am out of the office), so I can't say with authority whether the implementation is keyboard accessible or not for that browser on that platform. However, from a screen reader perspective--or, to be more specific, from the perspective of using JAWS and Window Eyes--my own tests have shown that screen readers do not read optgroup. I assume that the reason for this is that the browser's behavior is to skip over the optgroup labels. Since the optgroup label never gets the focus of the keyboard (or indeed any kind of focus at all), it is never read. If anyone else has experienced different results using screen readers, I'd like to hear about it, but my comments were not based on presumption ("vapourware"), they were based on my own tests. -- Paul Bohman Project Coordinator WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) www.webaim.org Utah State University www.usu.edu
Received on Wednesday, 28 July 2004 00:20:53 UTC