Re: A tag looking like a BUTTON tag. Fail?

On 28/05/2019 21:55, James A. wrote:
> I often refer to  2.1.1 keyboard operable. Keyboard users will expect links that look like buttons to act like buttons (i.e. are operable with spacebar and Enter keys). But even with role=button this requires additional scripting and is often missed. I recognise that some people may not fail this on 2.2.1 as the button can still be operated by Enter key but
> I am strong support of the COGA perspective: if it looks like a button, if should act like a button.

Normatively though 2.1.1 doesn't say HOW things need to be keyboard 
operable, only that there must be a way for keyboard users to do things. 
So I'd say you can't really fail this under 2.1.1 (but certainly mention 
this as a best practice recommendation if it comes to it).

I would also argue that keyboard users can also understand from context 
when something that is styled like a button is likely to be a link and 
not a button. And IF they tried to then hit SPACE and instead of 
activating the link the page scrolls, visually, they can quickly recover 
from that and try ENTER instead (and noting that buttons can also be 
activated with ENTER, and as an occasional keyboard user I usually first 
try ENTER before resorting to SPACE).

> 
> There was a really good explanation of why native button elements should be used in the session on creating accessible forms at a London Accessibility Meetup (about 7 mins in) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHaLzm-FGsc .

Noting that this is kind of the opposite problem...when something that 
should be a button/input is coded as a link. The issue here links that 
visually appear button-like ... which I'd argue, as said, is not a hard 
failure of any WCAG SC and is more a design/usability issue in my mind. 
There are valid reasons to visually highlight/distinguish certain links 
as being important calls to action...and styling them to be button-like 
is a very widespread and common technique.

P
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Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Tuesday, 28 May 2019 21:05:03 UTC