Use Lightning Experience with a Screen Reader

General Screen Reader Tips

Salesforce is a complex web application that takes time to learn and understand. Screen readers can be complex applications themselves. We recommend that you become familiar with your screen reader’s modes and navigation shortcuts on less complex websites before using it with Lightning Experience. Refer to your screen reader’s documentation for guidelines and common usage tips.

While Salesforce does its best to comply with accessibility standards, sometimes glitches occur with certain combinations of screen readers and web browsers. If you encounter difficulties that aren’t documented here, try using Salesforce with a different combination of screen reader and browser.

In this documentation, we sometimes reference putting your screen reader into a specific mode to interact with part of a page. It’s useful to know your screen reader’s modes and ways of switching between them before using Salesforce. Most screen readers for Windows have multiple modes.

When you use Salesforce and other web applications, the screen reader must switch modes between navigating pages and interacting with them. Sometimes a screen reader switches to the appropriate mode automatically if it correctly interprets elements on the page. Other times you must switch modes manually to get the behavior you want.

• Listen for a click sound in NVDA and JAWS to inform you of mode changes
• Check your screen reader’s documentation to learn more about its modes.

Navigation mode (JAWS Virtual mode and NVDA Browse mode)

This mode is the default mode for most screen readers. In this mode, use your screen reader’s cursor keys to navigate element by element through the page, and use screen reader shortcuts to jump between elements of a particular type. The keys you press are sent to the screen reader rather than the underlying page. For instance, in NVDA’s Browse mode, pressing the h key navigates to the next heading.

Interaction mode (JAWS Forms mode and NVDA Focus mode)

This mode is for interacting with controls on the page, such as form fields, tabs, list boxes, trees, and combo boxes. In this mode, the keys you press are sent to the underlying page rather than the screen reader. For instance, pressing the h key while on a text input in NVDA’s Focus mode types “h” in the text input. Pressing the Escape key returns you to navigation mode.

General Lightning Experience Navigation Tips

Keep these navigation tips in mind as you use Lightning Experience.

• To be compatible with assistive technology, disable the Load Lightning Pages While Scrolling preference in Advanced User Details. From your personal settings, enter Advanced User Details in the Quick Find box, and then select Advanced User Details. No results? Enter Personal Information in the Quick Find box, and then select Personal Information.
• With NVDA, you sometimes need to enable Focus Mode when you navigate to a menu or a picklist inside a form.
• After you open a dialog, interact with it, and close it, the focus is placed on the button that launched the dialog.
• Don’t use the screen reader’s list of links. Because Salesforce is a complex application, it’s possible to lose contextual information around a link.
• When you type in edit fields or combo boxes that perform as type-ahead or autocomplete fields, your screen reader reads the lists. To navigate to an item, use the arrow keys.
• We recommend using a screen reader that supports live regions, because status updates are often provided using this method.

General Keyboard Accessibility Tips

Some examples of keyboard navigation techniques include:

• Tab key moves to links and controls.
• Spacebar switches the state of buttons.
• Spacebar opens menus.
• Arrow keys move between menu items.
• Arrow keys move between tabs in a tab set.


Lightning Experience Keyboard Shortcuts

Lightning Experience has its own set of custom keyboard shortcuts. To open a dialog that lists available keyboard shortcuts, press Ctrl+/ on Windows or Cmd+/ on macOS.

The Keyboard Shortcuts dialog includes shortcuts for common global actions and navigation. The Lightning Console UI provides an even richer collection of keyboard shortcuts. To avoid conflicts with your screen reader’s default shortcuts, use these keyboard shortcuts in your screen reader’s interaction mode or in combination with your screen reader’s passthrough key.

If you continue to experience conflicts between Lightning Experience keyboard shortcuts and your assistive tool, you can disable keyboard shortcuts. Open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog and switch off keyboard shortcuts. If you use different web browsers, disable keyboard shortcuts for each browser separately.