Teleconference Details

Meeting Notes for November 2, 2007, D2L Accessibility Interest Group teleconference

Attendees

• Don Amos
• Jane Butler
• Hadi Rangin
• Joe Wheaton
• Sandra Earl
• Vinnie Young
• Nolan Crabb
• Ken Petri (scribe)

Notes

Discussed two new interface mock-ups D2L is currently considering--an expanding list and a drop-down menu. Most of the discussion centered on the drop-down menu.

• Agreed that the drop down action should be triggered by a click event. That is, it should not be triggered solely by getting the focus (via tab or whatever--it needs to be actuated by a click event).
• Agreed that, once expanded, the menu should be navigable by using the up and down arrow keys and not the tab key. But there was debate about whether or not the tab key might be used to move through the menu so long as, when the next drop down got the focus, the user wasn't forced to tab through its contents. For example, if a drop down gets the focus by tabbing to it, the user should not be moved into the drop down's list of options when he hits tab again; instead, he should move to the next control. (See previous item.)
• Agreed that the tab key should be used to move between drop downs on the page--that is, the drop downs should get the focus by tabbing to them (or arrowing down the page)
• Discussed the importance of returning focus to the drop down control (or action selected in the drop down) when the menu was de-selected).
• De-selection of the menu should not be activated by relying on the Escape key, since the Escape key is "captured" by screen readers. Instead, tabbing could/should be the action that moves one off of the drop down and collapses it (considering no selection in the menu list was made).

Though discussion of the usability/accessibility test plan was on the agenda, we ran out of time before getting to it.