Scroll to top: Does it need to be accessible?

Recently, we asked the accessibility practitioners a question about scroll to top button on LinkedIn which prompted an article “Scroll to top: Where should the focus land?” Most of the accessibility members in the community voted to move the focus to skip to content link & the developer of the Kadence theme for WordPress implemented…


This content originally appeared on DigitalA11Y and was authored by Raghavendra Satish Peri

Recently, we asked the accessibility practitioners a question about scroll to top button on LinkedIn which prompted an article “Scroll to top: Where should the focus land?” Most of the accessibility members in the community voted to move the focus to skip to content link & the developer of the Kadence theme for WordPress implemented the same

But a larger discussion started with few members of the Hello Accessibility community as to whether the scroll to top button must be accessible to keyboard & assistive technology users. here are the arguments that were made:

  • The scroll to top element is a floating icon that appears only when pointer of the mouse scrolls to a section of the page. This enables mouse user with smooth scroll that takes focus to top of the page. However, Keyboard only users & assistive technology users are presented the scroll to top button at the end of the page, technically the last element in the DOM. Sometimes, the button appears at the end of the main content or between the main content and the footer.
  • On the other hand, assistive technology users have their shortcut keys to navigate to each element on the page. For example, a screen reader user can press control+home & move to the top of the page.
  • Keyboard & switch users when reaching  the last element on the page have to just press tab, move to the address bar & then move to the page content. Here the keyboard users’ focus first lands on the skip to content link.

Given these two user groups and use cases, I believe  the scroll to top button is not helpful to them. I am sure any functionality that is available to mouse users must be available to keyboard and AT users. But do we go by this rulebook or step out of the line and consider the alternatives? Do we really validate whether a particular UI component serves its purpose for a keyboard and AT user groups before failing for accessibility?

As this is more of a broader question, I would like to hear thoughts from the community

  • Do we need to even expose the scroll to top button to keyboard & assistive technology user groups?
  • If the scroll to top element is not being exposed, do we need to fail against accessibility guidelines?

Let the thoughts pour in as comments, from you all!

The goal of any application is to make sure it is usable to all user groups. So, I would like to get some thoughts from the community on how to optimize usability & still achieve accessibility.

Contributors

During my interaction with these interesting accessibility & user experience professionals the discussion of scroll to top took a turn which prompted this article.


This content originally appeared on DigitalA11Y and was authored by Raghavendra Satish Peri


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Raghavendra Satish Peri | Sciencx (2022-01-12T06:38:18+00:00) Scroll to top: Does it need to be accessible?. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2022/01/12/scroll-to-top-does-it-need-to-be-accessible/

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