On a Mac, using Safari with VoiceOver, how do you handle pop up dialogs? If focus doesn't automatically jump to the first element of the pop up (often, it does not), and instead remains in the underlying web content, how do you even know the pop up is there?
I'm talking about legitimate pop up dialogs that websites commonly use to confirm actions. They are an integral part of using a website and can't be blocked like pop up ads. We must be able to interact with these dialogs in order to effectively use many common websites.
In my experience, sometimes the content of a pop up is sequentially at the bottom of the main page content. So, if I use my powers of ESP to divine that a pop up window has opened, I can often find its content by jumping to the last element on the web page and navigating around from there.
Wouldn't it be better if VoiceOver were to announce that a pop up opened, and, with verbosity set to high, also remind me what hot key would jump focus into the pop up? Wouldn't it be a good feature if there were a hot key that would reliably close any pop up?
Is there some feature of VoiceOver and Safari that would let me more effectively interact with pop up dialogs, and I'm just uninformed? (Likely.) Otherwise, it seems like VoiceOver is missing a pop up dialog interface.
Comments
Voice over needs a complete overhaul from ground up
I use the tab key for most interactions. It's not perfect but hey let's spend money on 30 year old language supporting synthesizers rather then really get to the route of the issue. and before anyone flips, I'm glad those languages are supported. I ended up talking with a senior Apple advisor and they agreed with so much. Such as they aren't aware of any disabled internal testers in any capacity, though we realize NDAs' and all that, also there are more issues then there are work arounds because they said they are given routamentary training on voice over and if it passes a quick QC test, out it goes. I'd try tab though and see if that helps. Didn't mean to go on a rant just not happy with IOS 16 and to be honest this is the first one i really dislike.
VO-Shift-J
I don't use this command so can't say if it will work, but the description for VO-Shift-J is "Moves the VoiceOver cursor to the item that popped up from the current item." Again, not sure exactly how it works in practice, but it's worth a shot.
HTH
Thanks, tab is working for me
My next opportunity to try this out happened to be with the MailerLite.com website. I went to my list of campaigns and selected one for deletion, and a pop up dialog appeared, which I had to interact with to confirm deletion.
I tried VO+Shift+J, but got the VO thunk noise. Then I tried tab, and focus immediately jumped into the dialog.
I found VO+Shift+J under VO navigation commands, so I suspect it's for non-web content. While poking through VO web commands, I see that I can jump to next frame with VO+Command+F, which might work, if the pop up is implemented with a frame. There seem to be multiple ways to implement pop up dialogs.
But with the tab key, I have a solution that seems to work for now.
Thanks, all, for the help. I appreciate it.
Depends on how the popup is…
Depends on how the popup is implemented, but yes, pressing Tab or going to the bottom are reliable first attempts. Be aware that of course Tab cannot focus non-focusable static text, which might be important if a VoiceOver bug makes the popup inaccessible or prevents you from navigating out of a popup that has stolen focus. The whole situation is and remains, I'm afraid, a bit of a shitshow.