Accessibility Behaviors for General User Interface Elements

Listed below are keystrokes that activate user interface elements and the expected behavior of screen readers when the user interface element is focused.

Table 20. User Interface Element Types

User Interface ElementAction
ButtonEither Enter or Space activates the button, causing the same action as a left click.
ComboBox
  1. Up or down arrow keys display the popup menu and allow selection of combobox values.

  2. Space or Enter selects a combobox item from the popup.

  3. If editable, alphanumeric keys make an edit.

Dialog
  1. If the dialog has an Accept button defined, the Enter key activates it.

  2. The dialog is modal and blocks all other keyboard events.

Content Area (IFrame)
  1. Ctrl + F6 navigates into the content area (iframe), selecting the first element.

  2. Ctrl + Shift + F6 navigates out of the content area (iframe), returning focus to the content area.

List
  1. The up or down arrow keys move selection focus up or down through the list elements. The selection is continually updated. An arrow key press results in a selection event.

  2. The Ctrl + Up or Down key moves focus up or down without changing the current selection. The spacebar can be used to add the focused item to the selection.

  3. The Shift + Up or Down key moves focus up or down, and the newly focused item is added to the selection.

    Note:

    If the list supports only a single selection, the Ctrl and Shift modifiers have no effect.

Tab BarLeft or right arrow keys move selection focus and select the new tab immediately. The selection focus wraps around the ends of the tab bar.
Text Field
  1. If editable, alphanumeric keys make an edit.

  2. Tab proceeds in the tab order.

  3. Tab cannot be entered as a character in the text field.

TreeThe left and right arrow keys collapse or expand the current node if it has children. If it has no children, there is no effect. The expansion is non-recursive. However, if the tree is capable of remembering the previous expansion state of any subnodes, it should do so.