[Emily] Accessibility of Buffer extension in Firefox is not ideal

[paul-buffer]

Description

Heya, @emily-plummer :) Here's the convo from Slack:

I’m chatting with a visually impaired user who originally reached out to us via Twitter. Seems Kerry is having some troubles with accessing/launching our extension in Firefox. His email here outlines the issue (https://secure.helpscout.net/conversation/267552616/921135/?folderId=2147). Wondering if either of you would be able to pop in & take a look to see if there’s anything we can do from our end to assist?

Case History

Helpscout: https://secure.helpscout.net/conversation/267552616/921135/?folderId=2147
Respond: https://respond2.buffer.com/conversations/KipfBf8iW5t9mJ3uD
Admin: https://buffer.com/admin/user/56cbeb31c0f525493a21a5af

[emplums]

Hey hey @pioul! This one is a fun one! :D Learned some really interesting things about firefox add-ons!

I believe this is happening because in https://github.com/bufferapp/buffer-firefox/blob/bf9e308f7946a67d897c43b6a1265949f5aac3d2/firefox/src/lib/main.js#L165 we're using a SelectorContext for images, but we haven't specified anything for links. Therefore, whenever a user right clicks on a link, or a linked image, the "Buffer this image/link" menu item does not show up in the context menu.

Curious if this something we did intentionally or not? I'm not super familiar with the history of the Firefox extension. It seems like having the Buffer item in the context menu for links might be really awesome for our users, similar to what we have in the Chrome extension.

If this is something we'd want to add in, to start, I think we need to add a new menu item with the context set to SelectorContext('a'), then add a new context to the menu object in config.js, and then create a new script for the new link context in data > firefox > menu.

I'd be happy to give this a go, then check back in, or to pair on this later if you think it might be a bit more complex than what I've uncovered so far!

[philippe-git]

Interesting case @emily-plummer, I wouldn't have thought screen readers aren't able to reach that toolbar!

The extension can also be triggered from clicking on the background of the page one wants to Buffer, after what "Buffer This Page" will appear in the context menu: do you think that'd work for screen readers?

Whether that's a good workaround or not, your proposed solution of adding a context menu item when "clicking" on a link could make sense, although I'm not sure Buffering a link/page even before navigating to it and seeing what's there would be a very frequent use-case. Keen to find the best balance between "normal use" and providing a way for screen reader users to easily use our extensions!

[emplums]

Hey hey @pioul! That's a good point, Buffering links might not be the biggest use case for many users!

One thing that comes to mind though is that often times images in an article or on a blog or news homepage might appear as simple images but are actually links. This would mean that the right click context menu on any image on a page that is also a link would not give the user the option to Buffer, which might be confusing for users who are used to being able to right click & buffer images. It would also help us achieve a better parity between the Chrome extension which currently allows this & the Firefox extension!

That being said, I'm not sure how big of an issue this is for most users - but I think if the fix feels pretty straightforward it would be a nice to have!