RE: argument for only ONE set of radio button navigation keys

Becky,
I doubt that users do actually use left and right arrow keys to move between
radio buttons. In fact, the tutor message from one of the leading screen
readers suggests using up and down arrows by default.
Regards,
Victor


-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Becky Gibson
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 11:29 AM
To: wai-xtech@w3.org
Subject: Re: argument for only ONE set of radio button navigation keys


The addition of support for left and right arrow keys in radio groups was 
intended to match the current behavior of radio buttons in the browser. 
Currently up and left arrows move to the previous radio in the group and 
right and down arrow keys will move to the next radio in the group. Note 
that the wiki has up/left moving forward and right/down moving backwards 
which I believe is opposite of the current behavior and hopefully just a 
typo. 

I think you are suggesting that only one set of arrows be implemented - 
either up/down and left/right.   My feeling that supporting both was 
accommodating to all users.  I believe that a visual l person encountering 
a horizontal grouping would assume left and right key navigation and up 
and down key navigation for a vertical orientation.  By supporting both 
sets the person who can not perceive the orientation can use either set of 
keys. 

-becky

Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote on 08/24/2007 01:48:30 PM:

> 
> aloha, all!
> 
> in a recent update to the ARIA Best Practices wiki, the following 
> was added
> 
> <quote cite="http://esw.w3.org/topic/RadioButton">
>   * Pressing the arrow keys moves focus and selection.
>   * Up or Left Arrow key press moves focus forward between buttons 
>     in the group.
>   * Down or Right Arrow key press moves focus backward between 
>     buttons in the group
> <unquote>
> 
> i would like to register a vote of strong disagreement of such a 
> keybinding -- there should be only ONE standardized mechanism for 
> cycling through radio button groups/fieldsets regardless of how the 
> grouping is visually presented: 
> 
> GJR's PROPOSED CHANGE TO TEXT
> 
history abbreviated see 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007Aug/0122.html for 
original post. 


Becky Gibson
Web Accessibility Architect
                                                       
IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
5 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com
blog: WebA11y
>

Received on Saturday, 25 August 2007 19:07:56 UTC