Glossary · Accessibility term
Browse mode
Also called: Forms mode, focus mode, scan mode, the virtual cursor
Browse mode is the state a Windows screen reader sits in while somebody reads your page, and forms mode is the state it switches into when they type. In browse mode the screen reader takes a flat copy of the page and drives its own reading cursor through it with the arrow keys, which frees every letter on the keyboard to work as a shortcut. H jumps to the next heading, B to the next button, F to the next form control. In forms mode almost every key goes straight to the control instead, because an edit box has to be able to receive an H. Each product names the pair differently. NVDA says browse mode and focus mode, JAWS calls its reading cursor the Virtual Cursor and its typing state Forms Mode, and Narrator calls the reading state scan mode. All three switch on their own most of the time, and that switch is why a keyboard test and a screen reader test turn up different bugs on the same page.
In practice
The switch is usually automatic, which is why most people never learn the modes exist until something breaks. NVDA moves into focus mode when you tab to or click a control that needs it and back out again on a control that does not, and Enter or space will do the same on a control that requires it. JAWS calls the equivalent Auto Forms Mode and ships with it on, with Semi-Auto and Manual available for anybody who wants to drive it themselves. Narrator turns scan mode on by itself in Edge, Chrome and Firefox and turns it off inside edit fields so you can type.
Single-letter navigation only exists in browse mode, and it is why a page's own keyboard shortcuts often appear not to work. The screen reader consumed the key first. NVDA publishes a list running from h for heading through k for link, f for form field, b for button, x for checkbox and d for landmark, with shift reversing direction, and its own guide names Gmail, Twitter and Facebook as applications that collide with it. That collision is the reason WCAG has a rule about single-character shortcuts at all.
The one thing an author can do to this mechanism is switch it off, and the switch is role="application". ARIA describes browse mode in its own words in that role's definition and says assistive technologies should pass most or all standard input events through to anything carrying it. That removes the reading cursor, the single letters and the heading list from everything inside. ARIA then requires every piece of non-decorative static text and every image in there to be tied to a focusable element, because focusable elements are all that is left reachable.
Why it matters
This is the mechanical answer to why a keyboard test and a screen reader test find different bugs on the same page. Tabbing exercises the focus order, and browse mode exercises the whole document in reading order, including everything that is not focusable at all. A heading nobody can tab to is invisible to the first test and central to the second. It also explains two complaints that arrive without a diagnosis. A custom widget where the arrow keys do nothing is usually a widget the screen reader has not been told to enter, so browse mode is still eating the keys. And a page wrapped in role="application" reads as broken while passing every automated check, because nothing is wrong with the markup and the reader has lost the only way they had to move through it.
Where the mode makes the bug
A team builds a custom listbox out of divs, wires the arrow keys, and tests it with the keyboard alone. It works. A screen reader user reaches it and the arrow keys move the reading cursor down the page instead, because nothing in the markup told the reader to enter forms mode. Adding the listbox and option roles is what flips the mode, and it is the same fix that makes the control announce itself properly.
Where this shows up on the site
Related terms
- Screen readerA screen reader is software that reads the screen out loud, or sends it to a braille display, for people who cannot see it.
- NVDANVDA is a free, open-source screen reader for Windows, made by NV Access, and more people reach for it than for anything else.
- JAWSJAWS is the long-established commercial screen reader for Windows, made by Freedom Scientific, and the one named most often when people are asked which screen reader they use first.
- NarratorNarrator is Microsoft's screen reader, and what matters about it is the shape of its use rather than its feature list.
- Keyboard shortcutA keyboard shortcut is a second, faster route to something a page can already do, and the accessibility rule covers one narrow kind of it.
Knowing the word is the easy part.
Find out where your own site stands. The free scan checks 10 pages in a real browser against all 90 supported automated rules, separates 27 best-practice checks from its WCAG findings, and names the rule behind every result.