RE: Setting focus in a form and screenreaders

A properly labeled form helps here.  That way the screen reading user has an
idea of what the form is for when focus goes there.

If the user wants more detail, such as the information that appears before
the form, they can use screen reading commands to explore the earlier
content.

The situation you've described is relatively common on the web today and
from my experience not a big accessbility problem for screen readers.

Be aware that some combinations of of AT and user agents will not honor this
behavior and start reading at the top of the page anyway.  In others this
this something a user can configure.

Kelly

 

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Mike Brown
Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2006 3:29 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Setting focus in a form and screenreaders


Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> 
> Mike Brown wrote:
> 
>>
>> I've been asked to create a form and on page load have the focus set 
>> to a particular field in the form. I've used some javascript to do that.
> 
> I'd circumvent the issue by simply not auto-focussing the field.
> 

Yes, but it's not my decision to make, so I'm looking for arguments as to
why. The usability one is probably not sufficient, but if it's a major
accessibility problem for screenreader users, then that's probably
sufficient to sway it. So I'm trying to find out if it *is* such a problem.

Mike

Received on Sunday, 23 April 2006 23:17:31 UTC