Assistive technology such as screen readers provide keyboard short cuts for navigating the content of web pages. For user input controls such as radio buttons and edit boxes the user can navigate the controls sequentially using assigned ‘form field’ or ‘form control’ navigation keys:
JAWS commands
- List of Form Fields = INSERT + F5
- Move To Next Form Field = F
- Move To Prior Form Field = SHIFT + F
NVDA commands
Navigate by form control = F
Window Eyes commands
- List controls = INS + TAB
- Next Control = C
- Previous Control = SHIFT + C
Form control lists
JAWS and Window Eyes provide a list form controls feature, these lists contain all the elements on a page that are recognized as form controls. Users can select a control from the list and move focus and activate it (JAWS), or move focus to it or move focus and activate it (Window Eyes). So for example using JAWS, if a checkbox is chosen from the list and the OK button pressed, the checkbox will receive focus and its state will be changed.
Navigation Support for ARIA User Input control Roles
For ARIA support in assistive technologies (AT) to be considered robust, navigation mechanisms provided in AT must also support ARIA based controls and other interface elements. Results of navigation support testing for JAWS, Window Eyes, and NVDA suggest that although ARIA Roles such as slider, listbox or spinbutton are recognized by some assistive technology, they are not included in control navigation features.
