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Re: ARIA for main navigation bar

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Apr 24, 2015 7:17AM


> My last point would be that when I'm navigating a menu, I want to get where I'm going (and figure that out) as quickly as possible, and I find that over-ARIA-fication can slow me down.

I agree. Menus and navigation structures continue to be a challenge and incorrect and overuse of ARIA is a huge issue in the field. I'd also make the following statements about the differences between the two types of menus.

1. When you implement a real ARIA application menu you have to implement all of the associated keyboard interactions and required roles.
2. Navigation flyouts should not use ARIA menu roles and properties.
3. Navigation flyouts should be used for navigation. If a navigation structure allows for other features such as checking items or performing non-navigation aspects perhaps you should use an ARIA application menu.

I also agree that many keyboard based patterns such as those for menus are not working right on mobile devices and thus if a site can be used on a mobile environment you need to test and implement for that environment -- perhaps first.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jennifer Sutton
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2015 5:53 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] ARIA for main navigation bar

I will respond but first want to emphasize two points:
1. I was not involved with the development this tutorial, so I cannot speak to the thinking behind the recommendations and 2. I speak for myself as *one* screen reader user, from my personal perspective, only.


Particularly in menus, it seems to me that there *is* a difference when using ARIA with a screen reader (and I am speaking only of desktop, here -- personally, I don't tend to use the Web much on my phone).

I tend to think that a flyout menu, such as the tutorial describes, more typically represents what would be needed on a Web site; whereas, using the ARIA menubar would be more for a Web *application*. I guess the simplest way I can put it is that even if something looks like a menubar, is it really *acting* like one?

One of the things that I find with ARIA (and perhaps it's with the mis-application of it) is that one can spend a lot of time going in and out of application mode to make selections (with JFW, for example). There are absolutely cases where this is necessary, but I am not convinced that menus are necessarily one of them, except when the Web-based product is working like software.

I'm not sure this helps, much.

My last point would be that when I'm navigating a menu, I want to get where I'm going (and figure that out) as quickly as possible, and I find that over-ARIA-fication can slow me down.

Best,
Jennifer

At 01:22 PM 4/23/2015, you wrote:
>Thanks, Jennifer, so glad the WAI is working on tutorials like this.
>Great to see this guidance. The tutorial indicates that we should be
>using a "flyout menu" to build navigation. Thus my confusion.
>Functionally is there a reason to use a flyout menu instead of a web
>application menu for navigation? I would think that if the web
>application menu delivers the same functionality for a web page, that
>it wouldn't matter to the end user, or would it? Do screen readers or
>interactive features differ between the two on desktop and mobile? Are
>the ARIA features perceived differently by screen reader users? Or,
>could an ARIA role "menubar" function just as well as a flyout for
>simple navigation? Is it important semantically not to represent
>navigation as a menubar, or vice versa? Questions, questions, so many
>questions. Best, Judith On 4/23/15 12:13 PM, "Jennifer Sutton"
>< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote: >I'll just put in a quick plug for the
>menu-related tutorial from
>WAI: >http://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/menus/ > >I'm sure feedback, in
>the manner described, would be welcome. > >Jennifer > >