Notification items are not keybord focusable (Mozilla Firefox)

[ShamrockLee]

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Bug

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Notifications

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When navigating the Notification page using the Tab key on the Mozilla Firefox browser, the notification items (with titles that links to the page that triggers the notification) are not keyboard focusable.

After iterating all the way from the "Skip to Content" link (a visually hidden item that only appears when getting focus, usually the first focus of an accessible website) to the "Search notification" editable combo box, the focus will go back to "Skip to Content" link instead of going to the notification items.

The issue is reproducible with or without a screen reader.

The following video demonstrate such behavior of focus skipping the notification items, with the sound of the screen reader to make the video accessible. To hear it, navigate to the "Unmute" button and press the Return key and then navigate backward to the "Play" button and press the Return key.

github_notification_not_focusable_firefox_tab.mp4

There are two workarounds:

• Hold (long press) the Tab to fly through "Search notification": If you press and hold the Tab key before the focus reaches "Search notification" editable combo box, e.g., when the focus is at the "All" button, chances are that the focus will rush through the "Search notification" editable combo box and then the "Group by" menu, and eventually land on one of the notification items. However, the only output during the long-pressing Tab is the visual flickering of the flying focus indicator -- the screen reader and the Braille display won't be able to catch up with such a rapid change of focus, making this workaround inaccessible non-visually.
• Navigating backward with the ShiftTab keys: When navigating backward (to the previous focus), the focus will leave the page, go through the buttons on the browser toolbar, and go to the last focus of the page (which is the "Next" link), and eventually reach the last notification item in the page.

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[queenofcorgis]

Thank you @ShamrockLee for writing in, creating the video, and including the workarounds - this is stellar feedback. Are you able to share your Mozilla browser version so I can pass this all along to our team please?

[ShamrockLee]

Oops! I forgot to include the setup information. Here it is:

Browser: Mozilla Firefox 135.0.1
Screen reader: GNOME Orca 47.2
Package manager: nix (Nix) 2.24.10
Distribution: NixOS 24.11

• system: "x86_64-linux"
• host os: Linux 6.12.5, NixOS, 24.11 (Vicuna), 24.11.20241216.3945713
• multi-user?: yes
• sandbox: yes
• version: nix-env (Nix) 2.24.10
• nixpkgs: /nix/store/wj2qla569hnxwqfc26imv5hqbxc1rc27-source

[cehfisher]

Hi @ShamrockLee - the accessibility team has made some updates, and this issue should now be resolved. When you have a moment, could you please clear your browser cache and try again? Thanks!

[ShamrockLee]

Hi! Thank you for updating and thank you for being so patient. This notification slipped under my radar.

I can confirm that the notification items are now focusable and announced by the screen reader.