ARIA role=dialog to Expose a Dialog in JAWS 12

I recently came across a discussion in the Accessible Innovators group on LinkedIn, regarding making a href="javascript:void(0)" and accessibility. My first inclination was to say never do that, but that’s not a solution for everyone. After recommending using ARIA role="dialog", another group member responded that it’s not that great for accessibility. According to AccDC Technical Style Guide, role="dialog" has enough issues to warrant not using it. I did some quick googling and unsurfaced screen reader testing of ARIA role=”dialog”, which touches on this, however it didn’t cover JAWS 12. I have JAWS Version 12.0.1158 installed, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. It would be ideal to combine the data from both sources, however AccDC didn’t have the data (at least not in tabular format) to share. By no means am I discrediting AccDC, actually it looks like Brian has done an extremely in-depth and well versed job in creating it, I’m just trying to push the data along and get it all in once place. The table below shows my findings, which I submitted to @wcagtest to be compiled into the rest of the results.

Using Aria role=dialog to expose a dialog (pop-up div box) in JAWS Version 12.0.1158 (Windows 7)
chrome Version 28.0.1469.0 m
Tab Down Arrow
  • tab display a dialog button
  • enter – modal shows
  • enter – reads the title of the document
  • enter – does not declare ok button
  • tab – declares cancel button
  • tab – announces tab
  • tab – declares ok button
  • down arrow – link
  • down arrow – display a dialog button
  • enter – triggers modal
  • does not focus on ok button
  • down arrow – cancel button
  • cycyling through the arrows, the ok and cancel button are declared
firefox 21
Tab Down Arrow
  • tab – display a dialog button
  • enter – just an example dialog. ok button (receives focus) to activate press space bar
  • tab – cancel button (receives focus) to activate press space bar
  • down arrow – link
  • down arrow – display a dialog button
  • enter – just an example dialog. ok button (receives focus) to activate press space bar
  • down arrow – does nothing
  • the rest of the arrows do nothing. the document moves (scrollbar) but focus does not change and jaws says nothing
ie10
Tab Down Arrow
  • tab – display a dialog button
  • enter – just an example dialog. ok button (receives focus) to activate press space bar
  • tab – cancel button (receives focus) to activate press space bar
  • down arrow – link (does not receive focus)
  • down arrow – display a dialog button (does not receive focus)
  • enter – just an example dialog. just an example button (does not receive focus) to activate press space bar
  • down arrow – does nothing
  • the rest of the arrows do nothing. the document moves (scrollbar) but focus does not change and jaws says nothing
    		•
    opera 12.15
    Tab Down Arrow
    tabs go right over example into results table arrows do nothing except scroll via scrollbar
    safari 5.1.7
    Tab Down Arrow
    tabs go right over example into results table arrows do nothing except scroll via scrollbar

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