Re: KEYNAV Bugs and Accessibility

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Padraig O'Briain wrote:
> 
> I have started looking at the keynav bugs you have raised to assess their
> impact on Accessibility. 

Cool, thanks...

The first one I have looked at
> Navigate out of noteboook:
> - If last control on frontmost page of notebook has focus, pressing Tab
> should move focus to the first control after the notebook.
> 
> <POB> This currently works. </POB>

<aside> As you go through the reports, you'll probably find quite a few
things that do currently work-- I wrote the bug reports more as a spec
of what the controls' overall functionality should be, rather than just
reporting those aspects that didn't work as we'd like.  Which
unfortunately makes your job a little harder...  </aside>

>- If any control on the frontmost page of the notebook (including its page
>label) has focus, Ctrl+Tab (*) should move focus to the first control after
>the notebook.
>
>- If any control on the frontmost page of the notebook (including its page
>label) has focus, Shift+Ctrl+Tab should move focus to the last control
>before the notebook.
>
> <POB> This currently does not work. This seems to me to be a usability
> requirement rather than an accessibility requirement in that an application
> would still be accessible without this feature being implemented. </POB>

I think Marc, Peter or Earl are probably better-placed than me to make
judgements on which are "genuine" accessibility requirements... after
all, you could argue that you don't need any keyboard navigation at all,
since AccessX allows you to fully emulate the mouse using the keypad  :)

The "use Ctrl+Tab to get out of an enclosing container" metaphor is
certainly one we're keen to apply wherever it makes sense, though, and
this sounds like one of those instances.

> - When any page label has focus, left and right arrow keys should move
> focus to the previous/next page label without bringing that page to the
> front.  (It's been suggested that this should *not* wrap around, I'm not
> sure about this).
> 
> <POB> This currently works but does wrap around. </POB>

Having since worked on the accessibility UI guidelines, I'm more
convinced that this probably shouldn't wrap around, but should instead
play the standard system warning signal (be that audio or visual) when
you try to navigate past the first/last tab.  Which is what Marc
originally suggested, IIRC.

> - When any control in the notebook has focus (including any page label),
> Ctrl+PgUp should bring the next tab to the front, and Ctrl+PgDn should
> bring the previous tab to the front.  In either case, the control on the
> new frontmost page that last had focus is given focus again.  (This should
> also wrap around or not, depending on what we decide to do in the
> left/right arrow key case above.)
> 
> <POB> This currently does not work. This seems to me to be a usability
> requirement rather than an accessibility requirement in that an application
> would still be accessible without this feature being implemented. </POB>

Again, not really my call, but I'd say this one was probably higher up
the list of priorities to implement than the last "more of a usability
issue" example you cited.  Navigating between tabs would become a bit
tedious without it, I think.

> - When any page label has focus, pressing Tab or Ctrl+down arrow should
> give focus to the first control on that page, bringing the selected page to
> the front if necessary
> 
> <POB> This currently does not work. This seems to me to be a usability
> requirement rather than an accessibility requirement in that an application
> would still be accessible without this feature being implemented. </POB>

Hmm, this one sounds kind of important to me too, but again, I'll let
others make the call...

> - When any control on the frontmost page has focus, pressing Ctrl+up arrow
> should give focus to that page's label.
> 
> <POB> This currently does not work. However pressing the up arrow gives
> focus to that page's label. </POB>

This is probably a less important one to worry about, I think.

> (*) Latest build of Sawfish (0.38) defaults to Ctrl+Tab for
> window-cycling-- we'd need to push back on this to support the proposed
> keybindings, as Ctrl+Tab is suggested here and elsewhere as the "navigate
> me out of this container" shortcut.

This of course has now been rectified in later builds of Sawfish, so is
no longer an issue.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771