Considering What a Mouse Does

For many people, keyboard accessibility becomes an awareness exercise, as they consider the specific elements of using a keyboard in place of a mouse or trackpad.

By design, the mouse and trackpad are supposed to be so easy and intuitive to use that we never have to think about them. This seems to work well for most people – whether you credit the design of the mouse, or the tendencies of people.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you deconstruct the operations of our simple mouse into the multiple discreet actions of what it does, you might find that you have been taking the mouse for granted.

Simple is as Simple Does

We all understand that the mouse allows a user to interact with digital content through a single simple action, the “click”.

However, there is a lot of synchronized moving around with the mouse that we take for granted.

Determining focus is a complex combination of motor actions and visual scanning that many people perform effortlessly in combination of cognitive review and selection of content in a seamless interaction.

The mouse is designed to allow a user to direct a point of interaction within the content they are reviewing, and also initiate interactive content at their discretion.

All of this action must be broken down into the discreet activities that are automatically performed by the user. :

·         Review Content – optical recognition/review (requires screen reader)

·         Select Content – requires focus indicator and appropriate key for content type

·         Activate Content – once content has been selected, the ability to initiate an action with the selection must also be available.

It is especially important to notice the separation of “Selecting” and “Activating” content.

Because the mouse allows a person to seamlessly integrate the visual review, selection, and activation of content with a simple click, it is easy to create problems for keyboard users when people design content to interact with the mouse.

Recognizing the specific behaviors for content and mouse interactions provides a framework for designing interactive content that provides the same capability for people using a keyboard.

Understanding the expected interaction patterns for different content allows us to review digital content with a consistent metric and success criteria, as defined in the WCAG. 

Let's consider an example of content that has been designed to streamline the speed with which a user can find their way through a menu.

A classic example is a menu that is programmed to activate when focus is set to a menu choice.

This seems reasonable, right?

Because a mouse-user deliberately moves the mouse in conjunction with visually reviewing the content, they can accomplish the act of review and selecting an option before they actually activate the interaction with a click.

It is a quick and efficient design - for sighted people using a mouse. However, for keyboard users, the experience is quite different. 

Because the menu is set to activate upon receiving focus, the screen reader user never gets to hear option 2.

Upon navigating to the menu, the first option will receive focus in order for the screen reader to read it aloud. 

As soon as the user hears the first menu option, it is activated.

Break Down Review and Activation

The solution to this is to create a “trigger” event, effectively separating the action of reviewing and selecting, so that the content can be reviewed before being deliberately selected.

Some people might assert that the keyboard does not allow the same ease of use as a mouse, which might even be true for them. However, it is important to recognize that accessibility is an exercise in considering the needs of others - just in case you missed the memo. The truth is, keyboard access does allow the same functionality as a mouse for many people, even if it takes a little more awareness and effort to ensure your content is compatible.