Edit comment LC-721 for Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

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Comment LC-721: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Robert C. Baker <Robert.C.Baker@ssa.gov> on behalf of Social Security Administration; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

or; Refinement of the section concerned:; Status:
assigned to; Type:; Resolution status:
Response drafted Resolution implemented Reply sent to commenter; Response status:
No response from Commenter yet Commenter approved disposition Commenter objected to disposition
Commenter's response (URI):; Comment:
Part of Item:
Comment Type: TE
Comment (including rationale for proposed change):

(See LC 681 for complete submission)

The guidelines do not address the following:

Â§Informational text and instructions within web applications must have a focal point achieved by using tab indices of zero or some equivalent technique.

Proposed Change:; Related issues: 724
(space separated ids); WG Notes: [EDITORZ] SENT FOR CLARIFICATION * Do not understand this one. What do you mean by "a focal point". Do you mean that if I hit page up until I hit the top of the page (or some other method to get to the top of the page) I will always end up at some starting point? Isn't this always true? Are you asking for something else? Please explain more and provide an example. Thanks CLARIFICATION RECEIVED Navigating through web applications with the tab key works fine for controls and is expedient for a keyboard user. However, there are many instances where there are error messages, informational text, instructions, etc. displayed as static text. This is often missed by users who are blind when tabbing through an application and by screen magnification keyboard users. SSA applies tabindices to the text to put focus on these areas so that screen readers speak it and screen magnifiers display it. This causes HTML validators to hiccup, so we are asking for a capability to supply this so that information is not missed. Cynthia and Bruce working on this topic Discussed in the 01 March 2007 telecon: Leave open. Action: David to add a sufficient technique to 2.5.1 (something like "Describing errors and creating a mechanism that allows the user to jump to them." http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/03/01-wai-wcag-minutes.html BBC: David's action item from above seems to have been completed, but doesn't really address this issue (G139: Creating a mechanism that allows users to jump to errors). Looks like LGR, GV, David had an email exchange on 1 April 2007 for this, but I don't see that it's been surveyed, so moving to proposal. Discussed in the 26 April 2007 telecon: Resolution: accept LC-721 as proposed (unanimous) http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/04/26-wai-wcag-minutes.html {not-accept}; Resolution: The working group believes that there are some instances where deliberately putting focus on something (like error messages) can be helpful, but that attempting to control the way a user interacts with all pages, especially where it may conflict with expected behaviors for forms or other user interface components, is problematic.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)