- From: Andrew Kirkpatrick <andrew_kirkpatrick@wgbh.org>
- Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 22:53:17 -0500
- To: Kelly Pierce <kpierce2000@earthlink.net>
- Cc: Jon Gunderson <jongund@uiuc.edu>, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
I went to the reference cited and found this describing the "keystroke." >. ALT+DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box > >Microsoft's explanation in this reference does not seem to be sufficient >enough for a blind person to know how to choose an item from a drop down >list on a web page without activating random items in the list. One needs >to do more than simply hold down the alt and down arrow keys simultaneously. >Contrast Microsoft's explanation to Jon's thorough and highly useful >explanation. > That is true, no doubt. Having a well-written description of what to do is always better than just knowing a keystroke. In this case, despite the existence of a (minimally) documented shortcut, I always recommend that a button be provided to submit the form and that the onchange javascript event handler not be used on a drop down list. It is harder when you are asked whether the presence of a drop down that links to a different page without a submit button (using onchange) means that the page is not in compliance with wcag, 508, or some other standard. There is a way to interact successfully with the form, it is just not well known. I would say that this type of element presents usability problems for keyboard users because people aren't familiar with it, but it is accessible (to windows users, assuming that browsers support this windows keyboard standard and that there is a good noscript that adds in a submit button if javascript is disabled). AWK -- Andrew Kirkpatrick, Project Manager WGBH National Center for Accessible Media http://ncam.wgbh.org 617.300.4420
Received on Sunday, 14 March 2004 18:17:14 UTC