Hi all. I ran into a stubborn control on a web page. I'll describe it here in the hopes that someone might have an accessible strategy.
The control lists several fiction genres. Sighted users can select multiple genre items by Command-clicking them.
I can easily select one genre item using my up and down arrow keys. The item I arrow to becomes the selected item. Also, I can select multiple contiguous items with Command+up or down, but I want a non-contiguous selection.
VoiceOver's multiple selection doesn't seem to work with this control. If I begin multiple selection with VO+Command+Enter, then try to arrow down to another item, the previously selected item immediately becomes unselected.
Very frustrating. Any suggestions?
If you want to try this item yourself, you will need to create an account at https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com and edit your account's genre preferences.
Comments
Poor Coding: One Suggestion
It sounds like this is not a keyboard-friendly control as per WCAG guidelines. Adrian Roselli who created the under-engineered multi select which is essentially an accordion with checkboxes inside it.
https://adrianroselli.com/2022/05/under-engineered-multi-selects.html
I'd suggest writing the website developers and asking them to change this control if at all possible.
Are you able to edit selections? Can you choose 1, return choose a second, return choose a third and so on? Awful workaround, but it could potentially be a stopgap as this gets fixed.
Thanks
I am pretty sure I tried: Find item to select with item chooser, move mouse to that location; command left click; repeat for each item. Somehow this failed, though I don't recall exactly how.
I think my best bet is to contact the website designers, provide them with your solution above (thanks), and hope they have enough bandwidth to address the issue.
Comments from the developer
I contacted the site. The developer replied that the genre selection control is standard HTML and works fine on Windows, where users Control+Arrow to items and select them with spacebar.
Control+arrow opens mission control on Mac, so I disabled that keyboard shortcut. Still, no luck. Anything I do on Mac to move to a different item replaces the existing selection with the item I move to.
This is also the case when I move to an item with the item chooser.
I'm unsure how to proceed here. It seems like an issue that I should report to Apple.
Safari bug?
The developer has been more than willing to work with me on this. He has a Mac, brought his website up using Google Chrome, and was able to do a multi-select using Command+Arrow, releasing the modifier, and pressing space to add to the selection.
In Safari, Command+Arrow grows the current contiguous selection. I guess I'll switch to Chrome for this website.
I don't know what Apple is going to do about Safari; hopefully they have a full replacement in the works, so there's little point in reporting this issue.