Accessibility in React Schedule component

21 Sep 20247 minutes to read

The Scheduler has been designed based on the WAI-ARIA specifications, thus applying the appropriate ARIA roles, states and properties for the Scheduler elements. It is also available with a built-in keyboard navigation support, making it easier for the people who use assistive technologies or who completely rely on the Keyboard support. As per the accessibility standard, the navigated dates, views and other interactive actions performed on the Scheduler will be read out to the target users who use assistive technologies such as screen readers.

The Scheduler makes use of the most required ARIA attributes such as aria-label and role to support the accessibility in it. To be more accurate, it must be used with an ARIA compliant browser along with the screen reader running from backend.

The accessibility compliance for the Schedule component is outlined below.

Accessibility Criteria Compatibility
WCAG 2.2 Support Yes
Section 508 Support Yes
Screen Reader Support Yes
Right-To-Left Support Yes
Color Contrast Yes
Mobile Device Support Yes
Keyboard Navigation Support Yes
Accessibility Checker Validation Yes
Axe-core Accessibility Validation Yes
Yes - All features of the component meet the requirement.
Intermediate - Some features of the component do not meet the requirement.
No - The component does not meet the requirement.

ARIA attributes

The Scheduler parent element is assigned with a role of main, to denote it as the main content of a component as well as a unique element of the entire document.

The following ARIA attributes are used in the Scheduler.

Attributes Description
role=”main” Attribute added to the Scheduler element describes the actual role of the element and denote it as a main and unique content.
role=”button” Attribute is assigned to the appointments of Scheduler, to denote it as a clickable element.
aria-label Attribute is set to the Scheduler parent element and its default value is Scheduler’s current date. On every time, the date is navigated, this attribute is updated with appropriate current date values. It is also assigned to other scheduler UI elements such as previous and next date navigation buttons depicting its purpose, div element displaying date range in the header bar and appointment elements.
aria-labelledby It indicates editor dialog title to the user through assistive technologies.
aria-describedby It indicates editor dialog content description to the user through assistive technologies.
aria-disabled Attribute is set to the appointment element to indicates the disabled state of the Scheduler.

Keyboard interaction

All the Scheduler actions can be controlled via keyboard keys by using the allowKeyboardInteraction property which is set to true by default. The following are the standard keys that work on Scheduler.

Keys Description
Alt + j Focuses the Scheduler element [provided from application end].
Tab Focuses the first or active item on the Scheduler header bar and then move the focus to the next available event elements. If no events present, then focus moves out of the component.
Shift + Tab Reverse focusing of the Tab key functionality. Inverse focusing of event elements from the last one and then move onto the first or active item on Scheduler header bar and then moves out of the component.
Enter Opens the quick info popup on the selected cells or events.
Escape Closes any of the popup that are in open state.
Arrow To move onto the next available cells in either of the needed directions. (left, right, top and right)
Shift + Arrow For multiple cell selection on either direction.
Delete Deletes one or more selected events.
Ctrl + Click on events To select multiple events.
Alt + Number (from 1 to 6) To switch between the views of Scheduler.
Ctrl + Left Arrow To navigate to the previous date period.
Ctrl + Right Arrow To navigate to the next date period.
Left or Right Arrow On pressing any of these keys, when focus is currently on the Schedule header bar, moves the focus to the previous or next items in the header bar.
Space or Enter It activates any of the focused items.
Page Up & Page Down To scroll through the work cells area.
Home To move the selection to the first cell of Scheduler.
Shift + Alt + Y To navigate to today date.
Shift + Alt + N To open editor window.

You can refer to our React Scheduler feature tour page for its groundbreaking feature representations. You can also explore our React Scheduler example to knows how to present and manipulate data.

Ensuring accessibility

The Scheduler component’s accessibility levels are ensured through an accessibility-checker and axe-core software tools during automated testing.

The accessibility compliance of the Scheduler component is shown in the following sample. Open the sample in a new window to evaluate the accessibility of the Scheduler component with accessibility tools.

See also