Screen readers remain in focus/forms mode when a search completes

mehgcap

This will only truly make sense to another screen reader user, but here goes.

NVDA, the screen reader I'm using, has two modes. When it lets me type, as in what I'm doing now, it is in focus mode. In browse mode, arrows and special hotkeys navigate the webpage and typing is impossible. Normally, it enters focus mode when focus lands on a control that expects typing or arrow navigation, like textarea, input, and so on. When focus leaves the control, or the page loads, this mode is automatically exited and NVDA returns to browse mode.

With Kagi, NVDA remains in focus mode, which is odd.

Open kagi.com while running NVDA. You are placed on the search field, and forms mode is entered automatically.
Perform a search by typing a string and pressing enter.
The page loads, but NVDA remains in focus mode. It should return to browse mode so you can start exploring your results.

While this may be an NVDA problem, I haven't seen it happen on any other webpage. Also, though I'm in focus mode, I can't type.

When the search page loads, NVDA should return to browse mode. Perhaps you could automatically set focus to the first result in the list? That should do the trick.

RoxyRoxyRoxy

Hi @mehgcap, I must have missed this issue, so sorry about that! We're making a big push towards better accessibility across Kagi (partially because of the issues you've raised here), so I'll make sure this gets fixed ASAP. If you notice anything else we can do better on this front, don't hesitate to post here, or even email me at gustavus@kagi.com.

mehgcap

Thank you for the update. Since I usually search by opening a tab and typing into the address/search bar, and this issue only happens for searches initiated by typing into the actual search field on a kagi.com page, it's not a huge issue.

I appreciate you looking more into accessibility in Kagi as well. I look forward to finding out what else you add or change. Mastodon seems to be a pretty common place for some blind people who are also interested in technology to hang out, so if your team has questions or wants feedback from low vision/screen reader users, it might be worth posting over there. I know it can be hard to get user feedback in general, let alone when you have to target a specific subset of your users.

RoxyRoxyRoxy

mehgcap Just today I heard we've cleaned up some menu items and toggles in settings to properly report their state, and changing usage graphs from images to readable HTML. Funny you mention Mastodon, we've already got a user on there that's been giving us some support in this regard.

mehgcap

All great news! Thanks.

Minionslayer

In fairness, this is more NVDA-related than Kagi. NVDA has a feature to automatically enter Browse Mode when a webpage loads: NVDA>Preferences>Settings>Browse Mode>Enable browse mode on page load (or Alt+E).
Additionally, keyboard shortcuts exist to explore results in Focus Mode, so in some cases you might not even need (or want) to switch modes.

mehgcap

Minionslayer My NVDA is set to enter browse mode when a page loads. Actually, now that I'm testing this more carefully, it's almost like the search results load via AJAX. NVDA doesn't alter its mode because, to it, a new page never loaded. It loses focus on the search field, but the same page stays in place, so it doesn't know it needs to change modes. If I do a search and exit focus mode so I can press the search button, NVDA stays in browse mode when the search completes.

I found the hotkeys that can be used in focus mode, but I haven't found them to be all that helpful so far. The ones that let me navigate between results don't let me read the snippets, so all I get are the links.

Minionslayer

mehgcap Sorry for the late reply; I didn't see the digest notification in my inbox.

Interesting, I'm not experiencing the behaviour you described. Here's exactly what's happening on my end (just for completeness).

Go to NVDA Settings>Browse Mode and make sure "Enable browse mode on page load" is ticked.
Go to kagi.com.
Tab to the "Let's fetch ..." box.
NVDA automatically enters Focus Mode.
Type something and press enter.
NVDA automatically switches to Browse Mode and I can use quick navigation keys and arrows to read the virtual buffer.

I have no idea about the Kagi internals, but nothing to me suggests that Ajax is being used or that the search results are being injected to the page. I can use my browser's back button to navigate back to the Kagi front page, and there's a new history entry for the search term.

By the way, I'm using NVDA 2024.4.2 on Windows 11 24H2. My only guess is that something is different in both of our environments and steps, but I have no idea what unfortunately.

mehgcap

Minionslayer Okay, this is interesting. I can easily reproduce the behavior I submitted, but I can also reproduce the behavior you described. The key difference is, I think, tabbing to the search field.

If I simply open kagi.com, focus lands in the search field by default. I type, press enter, and have to manually exit focus mode. If I open kagi.com, tab out of the search field, go to the top of the page, then tab back to the field, I get what you described--browse mode activates as it should.

Minionslayer

mehgcap This is rather odd indeed. Regardless of the focus of the previous web page, you've indicated that NVDA should always return to Browse Mode when the next web page loads. Since I'm otherwise out of ideas and not seeing the same behaviour on my end, I'd be willing to send you over my configuration file for you to test out, in hopes we can narrow down what could be causing this.