How to activate a clickable object in safari

Submitted by jay on Tuesday, May 26, 2015.
Forum
macOS & Mac Apps

Hello All.

I was wondering how to activate a clickable object in Safari. For example, your navigating a webpage, and it says something like:

Hello. Welcome to the sight. Press begin to navigate.
Begin, clickable.

Not sure if this is clear, but hopefully it is. I encounter these clickable objects a lot, but not sure how to activate them. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Jay

Options

Comments

Submitted by mehgcap on Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Yes, it makes perfect sense. :) You have two options:

  • While VO is focused on the object, hit vo-space just like you would for a link. I don't know why, but this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, depending on how the site works.
  • While focused on the object, put the mouse on it with vo-cmd-f5, then physically click, or simulate a click with vo-shift-space. If the first method fails, this should do it.

Remember that this kind of thing sometimes changes part of the page without alerting screen readers to the change, so if nothing happens, it could be that you have to find the updated section of the page.

Submitted by Chris Norman on Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Hi,
Just a word about updates to pages, a popular place for new stuff to appear is at the very bottom or the page. No clue why, just is.

HTH.

Submitted by carlos on Thursday, August 6, 2015

Hellow I'm also having this problem,
I called the apple accessibility help desk and told them I can't log out of a web site because it has drop down menus wich I can not activate.
In jaws I would press control insert enter to activate the drop downs.
I read the replys above and are not sure what the commands mentioned are what is vo plus space is there a voice over button?
Also this other cmd something plus f5 how do you do function keys in safari and what is cmd and how do you activate it?
Thanks
Carlos

Submitted by carlos on Thursday, August 6, 2015

I was talking about my I phon 6

Submitted by Brother J. on Thursday, August 6, 2015

I can be wrong but my self-taught HTML lessons, as I remember them, make me say these are elements – not objects. Embeds and objects are usually frames, inline frames and videos for the most part. The element to which you referred is called onmousoever. This is the attribute found in the HTML source code. Onmouseover elements as I recall are akin to tool tips because they reveal additional information when a mouse hovers over them. They also appear more visually appealing or so I was told.

To activate these, simply press ⌃-⌥-Space or both ⬆️ and ⬇️ keys simultaneously if QuickNav is enabled. It always works for me but if this is not so for you simply simulate a mouse click by pressing ⌃-⌥-⇧-Space after the VoiceOver cursor is focused on the element. Unfortunately, web pages lack the necessary ARIA mark-up to alert the screen reader in all cases. It is also unfortunate that JAWS For Windows is more responsive with regards to this type of feedback. I never encountered VoiceOver to be as responsive in this situation as JAWS For Windows.