Drop Down Lists in Cells - Excel 2007 - JAWS

Cell Drop Down Lists and JAWS

Something that crops up now and again at work in Excel is the issue of cell validation, how to set it up in a cell and how this works with a screenreader such as JAWS. In past times, this has been tricky to achieve, but these days it works really well.

I'm going to explain how we do this in Office 2007, I'm going to set up a cell with a specific list of choices and then we're going to run through working with that and try to mess it up and see what happens!

Set a List of Options for a Cell

Before we can check on how the cell validation works we need to have a drop down list in place so that's our first job. By the way, I'm using Excel 2007 and JAWS V15, so you may need to adjust the following steps if you're running with different versions:

1. Open Excel 2007 and make sure you have focus in cell A1.
2. In cell A1, type in "Do you like Marmite?" and use TAB to move to cell B1.
3. With focus in cell B1, use the ALT key to move to the upper ribbon and then RIGHT or LEFT ARROW to move focus to the Data tab heading. Alternatively, you can use ALT A to open this tab heading straight away.
4. Tap the DOWN ARROW to move to the lower ribbon and TAB through the commands until you have focus on the Data Validation... split button. Use the SPACEBAR to activate this button. Note: to go straight to this dialog box using the jazzy new Office keys the sequence is: ALT A, V, V.
5. With the Data Validation dialog box in focus, press TAB to move focus to the Allow drop down (ALT A) and choose "List".
6. When you confirm the "List" option, focus will move to the "Source:" edit field. This is where you type in the choices that you need the person inputting to pick from. In my example, I am only allowing two possible options - Yes, No. So, I type: Yes, No - into the edit field. NOTE: This is case sensitive, so you may want to input different case versions of your text. For example: "YES", "Yes" and "yes".
7. With the options set, I TAB away and then use CONTROL TAB to move to the Error Alert page in the dialog box. This page allows you to detail what happens when the person working in Excel doesn't supply the right inputs. I have several options here that I can TAB between in the Error Alert page, these are:
• Style (ALT Y): This allows you to choose between three icons that can be displayed: "Stop" displays a cross inside a circle, "Warning" displays an exclamation mark in a triangle and "Information" displays a lower case letter I in a circle.
• Title (ALT T): Here you can type in the main banner heading for your message.
• Error Message (ALT E): This text field is where you can explain, in slightly more detail, the information required.
8. For my example, I have chosen the Warning symbol, typed in a title ("Ooops!") and some extra text to explain that I require a simple "Yes" or "No" response. With these options in place, I TAB to the OK button and use SPACEBAR. The drop down list is now in place.

Now it's time to test it out!

Access Drop Down List Options in a Specific Cell

1. When you have focus on a cell with some validation, JAWS indicates that the cell has a "drop down list." If you miss this information, use INSERT TAB to read the current cell again.
2. With focus on the specific cell, use ALT DOWN ARROW to expand the list.

3. Use the DOWN and UP ARROW KEYS to move through the options in the list and press the ENTER key to confirm a choice.
4. To collapse the list without choosing, use the ESCAPE key.
5. Double-check that your choice appears in the cell by either moving away and back again or by using INSERT TAB.

Testing the Validation

But let's cut to the chase - what if you ignore the drop down list options and try and type your own entry? Well, this is where your "Error Alert" should kick in and do the business for us. In theory, you should have a message box with your text in it so let's test this out:

1. With focus on the cell containing the drop down list, instead of choosing from the drop down list I ignore it entirely and type in the word "food" and use the ENTER key.
2. Immediately, Excel pipes up with a warning message containing my Title and Error Message text. JAWS reads this information but if I miss it I can always re-read the dialog box contents with INSERT B.
3. The error message dialog box also gives me several button options in response to how I want to proceed. Of particular importance is the "No" button, which is in focus by default, and the "Yes" button. If I decide to choose "No" then my input is cancelled and I return to the spreadsheet. If I choose "Yes" however, my manual input is accepted even though it doesn't meet my criteria.
4. In this case, I choose the "No" button - I mean, the author of the worksheet has put cell validation in for a reason after all!

And there you go - cell validation working neatly in Office 2007 with JAWS. I should also add that it's good form to embed some comments in the worksheet for anyone using a screenreader to alert him/her to the use of drop down lists. For example, if you have a column of drop-down lists, you might want to pop a comment in the cell with the column heading to give the person inputting the data a bit of a heads-up. (I covered Comments in Excel a while ago on this blog, if you need a refresh then have another read through.

Until next time - have fun!