Search

Carbon bakes keyboard operation into its components, improving the experience of blind users and others who operate via keyboard. Carbon also incorporates other accessibility considerations, some of which are described below.

The search component is in the tab order, and users can type directly into the search input on focus. Users press Enter to submit their text as a search term, or they can press Esc to clear it. Once users start typing, a Cancel icon (‘x’) will appear, which becomes the next tab stop and provides another way to clear the input field via click, Space or Enter keys.

Variations of the search component use a non-persistent text input that is hidden behind a magnifying glass icon. In one variation, the user activates the icon-only button to reveal and put focus into the search input. In another variation, as the icon receives focus it exposes the input and the focus is immediately placed into the search input. Once in the input, the interaction, described above, is the same for all variations.

Carbon assigns the entire search interaction a role of “search”. It also provides non-visible labels for the search input and icon (“search”), and for the cancel icon (“clear search input”).

Carbon provides a search pattern that outlines three search types: basic, active, and focused. Each of these types starts with the basic search input mechanism provided by Carbon’s search component. However, each search type displays suggestions or results in different ways, which all have accessibility considerations. There are three broad areas that designers need to consider and annotate for accessibility:

Future updates to this guidance will offer specific documentation on these accessibility needs.

Keep these considerations in mind if you are modifying Carbon or creating a custom component.