In my experience the tab order reflects an element’s hierarchy, and would follow the same rules that Ethan outlined in the article. When I designed games which adhered to accessibility guidelines from the BBC, the tab order was defined by the order of importance of the buttons on the screen rather than the visual order in which they appeared. For example, on the start screen the most important button was play (large, central on screen), so it came first in the tab order, before mute, options etc (in the top-left-hand corner). This may not apply directly to the web, but I would have thought the same principles would apply here.
Graham
Hi Gert and Ethan. I agree, great point!
In my experience the tab order reflects an element’s hierarchy, and would follow the same rules that Ethan outlined in the article. When I designed games which adhered to accessibility guidelines from the BBC, the tab order was defined by the order of importance of the buttons on the screen rather than the visual order in which they appeared. For example, on the start screen the most important button was play (large, central on screen), so it came first in the tab order, before mute, options etc (in the top-left-hand corner). This may not apply directly to the web, but I would have thought the same principles would apply here.