Patent ID: 7908557

Claim:
A method of visually presenting a message in a computer system, the method comprising: detecting, in a computer system, that a screen reader application is being used in the computer system, wherein the computer system has a graphical user interface (GUI) that receives user input of data to an input field, wherein the GUI presents, in a predefined field of the GUI, a message in response to a determination that the data that was input to the input field is invalid, wherein the screen reader application is not configured to detect the presentation of the message in the predefined field of the GUI when screen reader focus is at the input field; detecting, in the computer system, a system event that causes the message to be presented in the predefined field, the system event resulting from the determination that the data that was input to the input field is invalid; and presenting a popup window in the GUI, in response to detecting the system event that causes the message to be presented in the predefined field of the GUI and detecting that the screen reader application is being used, the screen reader application being configured to detect presentation of the popup window when the screen reader focus is at the input field and to then automatically move the screen reader focus from the input field to the popup window, wherein the popup window comprises content that includes the message or a user-selectable option that upon user-selection automatically moves the screen reader focus from the presented popup window to the predefined field that is presenting the message.