Accessibility: Top bulk action buttons in search results

[ckaz]

We should discuss whether it might be useful to remove the top bulk action bar as it is confusing to screen readers. Here's the rationale behind my suggestion:

• The focus jumps from Results per Page to Sorted by to "E-mail", which does not make any sense there without context.
• Similarly "Select all entries on the page" is rather confusing because it comes after the buttons, so to use/understand it, it would be necessary to keyboard navigate back to the buttons or to have kept in mind, what the buttons said. (This is much better with bottom bulk action bar, where the select checkbox is below the result list.)
• aria-hiding the top toolbar doesn't work, because it contains focussable elements
• we could aria-hide and tabindex="-1" on all buttons in the top bar using JS or a separate template but this would not fully solve the issue because there are users using screen readers who have some vision left of who are dyslexic. They would still be able to see the toolbar but could be frustrated because it cannot be selected using keyboard navigation.

I for one would certainly miss the top bar since, as sighted person, I find it useful.

Does anybody have any better solution, i.e. maintaining both toolbars but avoiding the confusion?

Cheers, Claas

[crhallberg]

I'd be in favor of improvement over removal or hiding.

1. Make sure our headings are useful.
2. Move Select All above the buttons, either visually or in tab order.
3. Make sure our labels are descriptive. "Email Chosen Results". "Select 11 Search Results."
4. There's likely someone on the Slack who would have expertise on this.

The biggest bottleneck from this would likely be translations if we improve the strings, but that can be a separate PR from the other improvements.

[ckaz]

I'd make a PR for this then, ok?

[demiankatz]

Please feel free!