Definitely differing preferences sometimes and differing levels of proficiency in screen reader usage but that’s a given no?


I think if you can focus it on what it needs to be focused on after clicking the button then great if not don’t do it. Also maybe warn the user on a different page previously that this may happen and your program will try to direct them to the right elements of a page.

Yes

Not everyone is going to have the same preferences or belief on how something should work. It's great that you're thinking about this; so many people don't.

I may get some disagreement, but I definitely think you should shift the focus to new content if that content is shown when the user clicks a button. Otherwise, it appears that nothing has happened and that's infinitely more confusing. If you have enough landmarks/headings and your page is well organized, the user will find their way back to where they need to be.

Edit: You could also pop up a dialog with information, if that seems appropriate. Usually focus gets shifted back to the original position after that closes.

Lastly, remember that there are lots of blind people who are not good at computers, just as there are lots of sighted people who are not good at them. THe difference is that computers were designed to kater to a demographic of billions of non-technical sighted people, so they have more of a chance of figuring out how to do something. It's not your job to make up for lack of screenreader knowledge any more than it is to build a small guide to computers into your site (unless that's what you're designing, of course). If someone can't accomplish something, it's not necessarily your fault. Web accessibility is a tricky business if you're making complex dynamic pages. I personally think NVDA is the best Windows screenreader that will work well if pages are coded according to standards, and will complain if they're not. JAWS tries too hard to make up for bad coding. I don't have enough information about Narrator yet; it would be nice if developers could just use it right out of the box.

Thank you for reaching out and caring about something even if it doesn't personally affect you. It really is appreciated.

Yup. There are different skill levels, different preferences, and different screen readers make different things easier or harder, depending on how they were designed. That's why it's so encouraged that testing be done with more than just one user. Testing needs to cover different platforms (probably at least windows 10 with NVDA, windows 10 with JAWS, and iPhone and Android) and different skill levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). That way designers will get feedback that they can average out, instead of designing something that works for there blind buddy Joe Random, and nobody else.