Home page accessibility features

Use the keyboard shortcuts available for the Home page to navigate the activity stream views and the My Page view.

Navigation

The keyboard navigation can be enhanced with additional software, such as the JAWS 14 screen reader, which must be used with Mozilla Firefox 17.

If you are using JAWS and Mozilla Firefox, you can skip to different locations in the activity stream views or My Page view by using Ctrl+Insert+Semicolon to access the ARIA landmarks provided. The JAWS Landmarks view, which is accessed by pressing Ins+ ;+Ctrl, offers greater assistance than before in navigating to sections of pages. This dialog can be used to jump to sections in the page without tabbing through numerous fields.

Keyboard navigation for the activity stream and My Page views

Table 1. Keyboard shortcuts for navigating the activity stream and My Page views
Action Keyboard shortcut
Close pop-up window (the focus must be on the window). Esc
Open menu (the focus must be on the menu). Enter
Close menu (the focus must be on the menu). Esc
Move up through menu options. Up Arrow
Move down through menu options. Down Arrow
Select a menu option (the focus must be on the menu option). Enter

Toolbars

In this release of IBM® Connections, the navigation sidebar is split into three toolbars. You can navigate the items in each group using the arrow keys. Press Tab to navigate between the groups.

You can use the following accessibility shortcuts from the activity stream views:
  • Press the Escape key to close the type-ahead that displays for @mentions. This action also cancels the @mention.
  • Use the arrow keys to navigate to people in the type-ahead list. The focus automatically goes to the first person in the list when type-ahead displays. For the @mention feature, the cursor stays in the entry box until you use the Down arrow to enter the list of people. This functionality allows you to continue typing the name to refine the list.
  • Press the Escape key to close the dialog that is used to show people who liked an item. You can press the Escape key to close any dialog.

For the calendar items in the Activities widget, the mechanism and keys are the same as for the drop-down menus. However, when a date has multiple entries associated with it, after pressing Enter to open the pop-up window for the date, you use the Tab key rather than the arrow keys to navigate through the items in the window.

To display the Profiles business card anywhere in the Home page application, move the focus to the user name, and then press Ctrl+Enter to display the card.

In the Connections banner, Profiles, Communities, Apps, and the user image launch dialogs. Use the Tab key to navigate through the options.