Accessibility and Pega Platform
Pega Platform uses the Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA) roles to support accessibility. WAI-ARIA roles are a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) ontology that specifies roles, states, or properties for each element. WAI-ARIA roles provide semantic information about features, structures, and behaviors allowing assistive technologies to convey information to users.
There are two concepts that apply to Pega application development: the main content area and the skip to content link. These concepts affect how assistive technologies interact with the content of an application web page.
Main content area
The main content area is where the application displays the most important content. When the user uses a tab key to navigate the page, this is where the focus lands when the Skip to main content link is selected.
When designing an application, a Adding WAI-ARIA roles to a Dynamic Layout may be specified as the main content area.
By default, the dynamic container or the center panel of a screen layout are marked as the main content area if either of those elements is included in the interface. This behavior cannot be altered in development.
Content links
A Adding a main content link to a dynamic layout enables application users to tab to the main content area of a page. When the user presses the tab key when the page loads, the Go to main content link appears. If the user presses the Enter key, the application will skip directly to the main content area of the page. Alternatively, the user can tab through the link and continue on to those application elements between the Go to main content link and the main content area.
- Adding WAI-ARIA roles to a Dynamic Layout
WAI-ARIA roles are added to a dynamic layout to provide semantic information about the role of the dynamic layout on the page. The settings for WAI-ARIA roles appear on the General tab of the dynamic layout properties modal dialog. To add an ARIA role to a dynamic layout:
- Adding a main content link to a dynamic layout
A main content link allows a user navigating an application with the keyboard to tab through the interface to pass over non-essential elements and move directly to the most important area of the page. Tabbing past navigation, banners, and non-essential content saves the user time in reaching the main content area.
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