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RE: drop down menus

for

From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Jul 31, 2003 12:34PM


I thought the question concerned the use of JavaScript to display a sub-menu
when moving the mouse over a main menu item or link - whether these could be
accessible.

The tutorial (http://jimthatcher.com/webcoursea.htm#Webcourse10.d) tried to
answer that by saying that if all the links of the "sub-menu" are easily
available on the page opened by the main menu item link, then yes - the
advantage of someone using the JavaScript sub-menus is nominal.

I didn't intend to be commenting about fonts or colors or anything else,
just whether or not the drop-down menus could be accessible. I think Yes,
essentially by ignoring the sub-menus.

Jim
508 Web Accessibility Tutorial http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm.
"Constructing Accessible Web Sites:" http://jimthatcher.com/news.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Gunderson [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 11:53 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: RE: drop down menus

The referenced tutorial says that pull down menus are a "relatively minor
convenience for sighted (mouse) users". If I have a visual impairment and
have user styling enabled on the web browser these pull down menus are a
major problem. If I change font size these menus fall apart in terms of
reflow and obscure content. If I change colors the menu text becomes
transparent to the background text and this results in a spaghetti of over
lapping text, which is totally unreadable.

I characterize these problems as major accessibility problems. Just try
some of these websites yourself with user styling of text enabled on the
browser.

Jon


At 08:44 AM 7/31/2003 -0500, Jim Thatcher wrote:
>There's a discussion of drop down menus in the "Web Course",
>http://jimthatcher.com/webcoursea.htm/#webcourse10.d with the NSF.gov site
>as an example.
>
>Jim
>508 Web Accessibility Tutorial http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm.
>"Constructing Accessible Web Sites:" http://jimthatcher.com/news.htm
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: NutHouse Studios [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
>Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 9:23 PM
>To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>Subject: drop down menus
>
>I was wondering if it's possible to make drop down menus for navigation
that
>
>are accessible? For an example of what I'd like to do, see:
>http://www.wcc.cc.il.us/ and view the top menu that includes Prospective
>Students, Current Students, etc. I know that they're not using ALT tags,
>but I was just wondering if the use of drop down menus is possible.
>
>Thanks for your time - max c.
>
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Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund



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