Accessibility Support for the Splitter Component

Accessibility Support

Out of the box, the Telerik and Kendo UI Splitter provides extensive accessibility support and enables users with disabilities to acquire complete control over its features.

The Splitter is compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 standards and Section 508 requirements, follows the Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) best practices for implementing the keyboard navigation for its component role, provides options for managing its focus and is tested against the most popular screen readers.

WAI-ARIA

This section lists the selectors, attributes, and behavior patterns supported by the component and its composite elements, if any.

Slitter Pane

Selector	Attribute	Usage
`.k-pane`	`role=group`	Sets the proper role for the Splitter pane that identifies a set of user interface objects that is not intended to be included in the page's summary or table of contents.

Note: The value of the aria-label attribute of the split-bar elements will be provided to their respective preceding pane element through the API.

SplitBar

Selector	Attribute	Usage
`.k-splitbar`	`role=separator`	Sets the proper role for the Splitter split-bar element.
	`aria-label`	An accessible name, with aria-label should be included if there is more than one focusable separator. The value is set through the corresponding SplitterPane API.
`.k-splitbar-horizontal`	`aria-orientation=vertical`	When a splitbar separates two panes horizontally, its aria-orientation must be explicitly set to 'vertical'.

Note: Setting the value-now attribute of the separator element is not applicable, as the Splitter is a complex layout component allowing splitting the content into multiple panes across any number and level of nested Splitters and panes, thus announcing a value would not convey any meaningful information. Moreover, there is no specification, or WAI-ARIA recommendation that explains how value should be set in multiple panes scenario. Further information on this complicated scenario could be found in the following WAI-ARIA GitHub issue:

WAI-ARIA Practices on GitHub

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Behavior
`Up Arrow`	Moves up the split-bar in a vertical Splitter.
`Down Arrow`	Moves down a split-bar in a vertical Splitter.
`Left Arrow`	Moves left a split-bar in a horizontal Splitter.
`Right Arrow`	Moves right a split-bar in a horizontal Splitter.
`Ctrl/Cmd(Mac) + Up Arrow`	Moves the splitbar up to collapse/expand the adjacent panes in the up direction.
`Ctrl/Cmd(Mac) + Down Arrow`	Moves the splitbar down to collapse/expand the adjacent panes in the down direction.
`Ctrl/Cmd(Mac) + Left Arrow`	Moves the splitbar left to collapse/expand the adjacent panes in the left direction.
`Ctrl/Cmd(Mac) + Right Arrow`	Moves the splitbar right to collapse/expand the adjacent panes in the right direction.
`Enter`	Toggles the collapsed state of the nearest collapsible pane.
`Tab`	The key that allows focusing a splitter bar. Thus, all splitbars have `tabindex` and are included in the tab sequence.

Note 1:** The "splitter bar/split-bar" is the section between two panes that allows collapsing/resizing.

Note 2:** Splitter bars can be expanded/collapsed when double clicked apart from clicking on the expand/collapse icon element. Double-clicking (or Enter key) toggles the closest collapsible pane (left pane has priority over right pane if both are collapsible).

Testing

The Splitter has been extensively tested automatically with axe-core and manually with the most popular screen readers.

Screen Readers

The Splitter has been tested with the following screen readers and browsers combinations:

Environment	Tool
Firefox	NVDA
Chrome	JAWS
Microsoft Edge	JAWS

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Splitter