NVDA screen reader not working with mega menu keyboard navigation

Question

On this page , the keyboard navigation works fine on my megamenu until I start NVDA screen reader: when I activate a menu item by hitting enter on my keyboard, instead of showing the menu panel, my browser opens the last anchor or button right before the menu in the markup. In this case it's the green login button on the upper right corner.

Has anyone seen this problem before?

Thank you

Answer 1

You may not be in "browse mode."

Using NVDA (ideally with Firefox or even IE), press the NVDA key (probably Caps-Lock if you are on a laptop) and Space . Then navigate the page with the Tab key.

Once I switch modes, hitting the Enter key does what I think you want.

If you are unfamiliar with the different browse modes, take a look at Understanding screen reader interaction modes . This passage may help:

By creating a virtual copy of the document, screen readers make it possible for blind people to interact with content in ways that would otherwise be impossible on the Windows platform. This happens because the screen reader intercepts most keypresses before they reach the browser, triggering an interaction with the virtual document instead.

From a comment on that post:

Actually some screen readers will fire the onClick event handler when space or enter is pressed on an element while in virtual/browse mode. This is one reason why an element can be activated via the keyboard but not triggered from the keyboard when a screen reader is running.

How Windows Screen Readers Work on the Web is a similar resource that re-states much of the same.