Comment 20 for bug 1187993

Thanks for clarifying my thinking on the issue.

I look at the search box code and see:

<span class='search_box_wrapper'>
<label id="search_box_label">Search:
<input type="text" id="search_box" name="query" aria-label="Enter search query:" value=""
                dojoType="openils.widget.AutoSuggest" type_selector="'qtype'"
                submitter="this.textbox.form.submit();"
                store_args='{"org_unit_getter": function() { return 1; }}' />
</label>
</span>

The auto-suggest <div> and the descendent <ul> an <li> items are inserted using dojo overlaying the regular search box.

Then using Firebug to look at the code dojo injects into the page, the wrapper <div> looks like:
<div id="widget_search_box_dropdown" class="dijitPopup" style="z-index:1000; visibility: visible; top 224.883px; left: 70.633px;" role="presentation">

With adding an attribute of aria-hidden="true" [1], in theory the screen reader should ignore the <div> and contents:
<div id="widget_search_box_dropdown" class="dijitPopup" style="z-index:1000; visibility: visible; top 224.883px; left: 70.633px;" role="presentation" aria-hidden="true">

Is this doable in dojo? Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to play around with it and have no immediate access to JAWS to test.

[1] http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201205/hiding_visible_content_from_screen_readers_with_aria-hidden/