Forum Discussion
Trigger to close an object when tab focus moves from it?
- When you tab to button 3 and click, you open the pop up 3. Then it requires a tab to get to pop up 3. However, there's a trigger to close pop up 3 when tabbed.
- Thus you're tabbing to it and triggering it to close, as well.
I'll check with support to see what they say about the expected behavior and what should be in focus and when.
A different consideration: generally tabbing is a way to navigate the content. By adding a trigger to create an additional action it is a bit non-standard and may be confusing for the person who is using a screen reader to access the content. I don't think adding the extra click is an issue for a person used to using the readers.
Are you able to get some feedback from someone who uses a screen reader? It would be interesting to get their perspective.
I'd design the interaction a different way: perhaps use layers that the person can open and close. Or add a hidden button for the reader that lets them open a layer optimized to get the content. Then the screen can be more scannable and easier to parse.
Hi Tom, thank you for your response. Can you explain the hidden button idea further? I'm not sure what you mean by a layer that is optimized to get the content.
A couple of thoughts on the rest of your reply:
-- I understand your point about tabbing as a way to navigate the content. I'm just not sure that the tab trigger and the enter button trigger are behaving in a similar manner (which they should be). For the first two popups, the Enter trigger is not activated until the popup is already in focus (has the yellow box on it), which is what I expected, while on the last two popups, the Tab trigger is activated while the focus is still on the button and never gets to the popup.
-- We don't know of any learners who use screen readers, so unfortunately, we're flying blind here.
-- I had considered using a layer for each popup, but quickly nixed the idea because in reality, the version of this slide in my course is much more complicated. It's a slide with audience-specific screenshots. (The version of the application screen has extra fields and in different layouts compared to the other audience's version.) So, I have the screenshot, buttons, and popups for one audience on one layer, and those items on a second layer for the other audience. The correct layer displays based on a variable set at the beginning of the course. If I did as you suggest, I would have about 18 layers. It would be complicated mess to manage. If I ever have to do popups like this again and there are no audience-specific considerations, layers would likely be the best option.
Please let me know what you find out about that tab trigger behavior.
Thank you again for your help. It's much appreciated!
Lisa