1254116 - Google search suggestion gets selected at mouse pointer

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: DOM: UI Events & Focus Handling, defect)

Description

[ks132]

Attachment: Screenshot from 2016-03-07 17-02-15.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:44.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/44.0
Build ID: 20160211124446

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to https://www.google.com/
2. Move mouse pointer below search bar
3. Start typing search query
4. Google search suggestions list drops down


Actual results:

A search suggestion gets selected at mouse pointer so that if using keyboard  to move up or down over the list, moving begins from that selected item.


Expected results:

Moving over suggestion list should start at 1-st item (the most relevant one).

This behavior (actual result) does not reproduce in Google Chrome (works as expected).

Comment 1

[Loic]

Navigating with the keyboard starts where the focus is on the page and, in this case, the focus is on the suggestion hovered by the mouse cursor.

Comment 2

[Andrew Overholt [:overholt]]

This behaviour is different in Chrome, FWIW.

David, is this an issue from an accessibility perspective?

Comment 3

[David Bolter [:davidb] (NeedInfo me for attention)]

Not really an issue for sighted keyboard users. For other keyboard users this might cause some (minimal?) confusion. I'm curious why Chrome is different. Neil any thoughts?

Comment 4

[Neil Deakin]

I think this autocomplete dropdown is supplied by the page.

The behaviour is correct for our built-in autocomplete and for menus though, so this is some event interaction specific to the page issue and not something I know much about.

Comment 5

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

What's the scenario if one continues to navigate between search suggestions, with the mouse pointer still on the initial one that grabbed the focus? Does the keyboard get stuck/pulled back to that initial item that still has the mouse hovering over it, or does navigation work correctly? If the mouse pointer always drags keyboard focus back to itself, in effect trapping keyboard users, this is very well an issue for sighted keyboard users if they cannot really move the mouse. It definitely is a problem for screen reader users who might not even be aware where the mouse pointer is.

Comment 6

[David Bolter [:davidb] (NeedInfo me for attention)]

(In reply to Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ) from comment #5)
> Does the keyboard get stuck/pulled back to that initial item that still has the
> mouse hovering over it, or does navigation work correctly?

No. It works correctly.

Comment 7

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

OK, then I deem this "annoying and irritating", but not critical.