[eska]

I’m not a blind person but I was curious about once when I tried to make a hyper-optimized website. It seemed like the best way to please screen readers was to have the navigation HTML come last, but style it so it visually comes first (top nav bar on phones, left nav menu on wider screens).

[sholladay]

Props to you for taking the time to test with a screen reader, as opposed to simply reading about best practices. Not enough people do this. Each screen reader does things a bit differently, so testing real behavior is important. It's also worth noting that a lot of alternative input/output devices use the same screen reader protocols, so it's not only blind people you are helping, but anyone with a non-traditional setup.

Navigation should come early in document and tab order. Screen readers have shortcuts for quickly jumping around the page and skipping things. It's a normal part of the user experience. Some screen readers and settings de-prioritize navigation elements in favor of reading headings quickly, so if you don't hear the navigation right away, it's not necessarily a bug, and there's a shortcut to get to it. The most important thing to test is whether the screen reader says what you expect it to for dynamic and complex components, such as buttons and forms, e.g. does it communicate progress, errors, and success? It's usually pretty easy to implement, but this is where many apps mess up.

[cluckindan]

”Each screen reader does things a bit differently, so testing real behavior is important.”

Correction: each screen reader + os + browser combo does things a bit differently, especially on multilanguage React sites. It is a full time job to test web sites on screen readers.

If only there was a tool that would comprehensively test all combos on all navigation styles (mouse, touch, tabbing, screen reader controls, sip and puff joysticks, chin joysticks, eye trackers, Braille terminals, etc)… but there isn’t one.

[hnthrowaway121]

Do you know about assistiv labs?

Doesn’t hit everything but it can run real device screen reader automated tests

[hnthrowaway121]

Wouldn’t that run afoul of other rules like keeping visual order and tab order the same? Screen reader users are used to skip links & other standard navigation techniques.

[eska]

Interesting question. I don’t remember testing this, sorry.

[striking]

You want a hidden "jump to content" link as the first element available to tab to.

[marcosdumay]

Just to say, that makes your site more usable in text browsers too, and easier to interact with the keyboard.

I remember HTML has an way to create global shortcuts inside a page, so you press a key combination and the cursor moves directly to a pre-defined place. If I remember that right, it's recommended to add some of those pointing to the menu, the main content, and whatever other relevant area you have.