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Buddypress Moderation Tools and accessibility

  • Participant
    Level: Initiated
    Posts: 5
    Erotopia on February 5, 2026 at 10:58 am #56072

    Hello,

    I’ve noticed some accessibility challenges in BuddyPress Moderation Tools for users with visual impairments who rely on screen readers.

    If I choose to display the report form as a Popover, it technically works, but the form appears after the very last content on the page in the DOM. I assume this happens because screen readers read HTML from top to bottom and the form is injected at the end. While screen readers can navigate directly to form fields (for example jumping to the subject field), it can still be a bit confusing for users to locate where the form actually begins.

    If I instead choose Modal popup, which should in theory work better from an accessibility perspective (with focus trapped in the modal and the underlying page hidden while it is open), nothing happens at all. The form does not open, even though the browser is explicitly configured not to block popups.

    I’ve tested this behavior using VoiceOver on both macOS and iPhone, with the same result on both platforms.

    Do you know what might be causing this, and whether there is a way to improve or fix this behavior?

  • Participant
    Level: Initiated
    Posts: 5
    Erotopia on February 5, 2026 at 12:31 pm #56075

    I wanted to add some additional details.

    The modal popup does actually open and overlay the page content, but it does not receive focus for the screen reader. This means that when navigating with a screen reader, the user remains in the underlying page content and cannot locate the form fields within the modal. The behavior seems to vary slightly depending on the OS when using VoiceOver, and I haven’t yet tested with other screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, or ZoomText.

    What would be needed is for the modal to be treated as a dialog, with the rest of the page marked as inactive while the modal is open. The screen reader / keyboard focus should be set to the first interactive element (in this case, the subject field), and keyboard navigation should be trapped within the modal, looping through its elements until it is closed.

    I’m not able to code this myself, but these practices are clearly outlined in WCAG guidelines.

    Would this be something you could consider looking into? Otherwise, we’ll continue using the Popover version for now.

  • Keymaster
    (BuddyDev Team)
    Posts: 25302
    Brajesh Singh on February 5, 2026 at 1:15 pm #56077

    Hi Johan,
    Thank you for reporting the issue. The plugin was not tested with accessibility in mind. Please allow me 2-3 working days to explore the solution. We should have a solution.

    Regards
    Brajesh

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