Thread Subject: Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

Return to this mailing list's archives

From: Smith, Jamie
Date: Fri, Feb 23 2007 4:00 PM
Subject: Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

First is it okay to bring up issues that were discussed on the wiki that is still in the web and websoft committee? If yes...

I've been looking through the wiki and couldn't tell if the discuss regarding the current requirement of skip navigation ended up including some type of structured navigation included in the draft.


Current wording

22(o) A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.


Discussion

I would definitely like to see this particular wording include structured navigation using H tags to group navigation elements and unordered or order lists. So many front pages today have many, many links... some in the 100s. A person with speech needs to read them when folks code for the sighted users only. But pages like the empowerment zone, has the same large group (don't think they user list format) and yet I was pointed to it by speech users that found it navigatable. At this point I'm redoing my site using style sheets and have only a small global menu and a local menu with the look and feel of buttons. It was easy for me to use a "hidden" H 2 class for the local menu.


Possible wording

A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links. Navigation elements should be established using order or unordered lists. When there are more than X links on a page, navigation elements should be coded using h tags.

I'm not sure if the order and unordered list helps speech users. But I believe it would make it easier to test a site. Maybe not, cause I use order and unordered list for other things as well.




Please take a few minutes to provide feedback on the quality of service you received. The Department of Education values your feedback as a customer. Commissioner John L. Winn is committed to continuously assessing and improving the level and quality of services provided to you by Department staff. Simply use the link below. Thank you in advance for completing the survey.


http://data.fldoe.org/cs/default.cfm?staff= = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = |17:57:05%20Fri%2023%20Feb%202007

From: David Poehlman
Date: Sat, Feb 24 2007 9:20 AM
Subject: Re: Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

I think here we need to stick close to the mark. This particular
provision has run affoul of many for good reason. It has
disadvantages in thiit forceed authors to do something somewhat
disruptive to their code. Often, because of this and other
considerations, it was made to be invisible even though it wis
possible for users who can see to benefit from the mechanism. Often,
it just plain does not work either due to lack of support by the
browser or because of incorrect markup.

Having said all that, what should we do with 22? We should turn it
into:
"a method shal be provided to facilitate the efficient use of pages
by allowing contentt which has changed to be read before any
repetative content is read automatically and if manual effort is
being used that mmarkup shall be provided too identify repetative
content. I know that this is too long, but my point is that the
issue we have is one of author, user agent and user all playing
together. The author needs to be able to confidently develop
ccontent without being told too muchh what to put in it. The user
agent needs something to pass to the user in order to make the
experienc rich and efficient. The user nneeds to be able to go to
the important parts of content, too often, we skip nav and then
realize there is something there we need or don't know it's there
bbecause we never look.

On Feb 23, 2007, at 5:56 PM, Smith, Jamie wrote:

First is it okay to bring up issues that were discussed on the wiki
that is still in the web and websoft committee? If yes...

I've been looking through the wiki and couldn't tell if the discuss
regarding the current requirement of skip navigation ended up
including some type of structured navigation included in the draft.


Current wording

22(o) A method shall be provided that permits users to skip
repetitive navigation links.


Discussion

I would definitely like to see this particular wording include
structured navigation using H tags to group navigation elements and
unordered or order lists. So many front pages today have many, many
links... some in the 100s. A person with speech needs to read them
when folks code for the sighted users only. But pages like the
empowerment zone, has the same large group (don't think they user
list format) and yet I was pointed to it by speech users that found
it navigatable. At this point I'm redoing my site using style sheets
and have only a small global menu and a local menu with the look and
feel of buttons. It was easy for me to use a "hidden" H 2 class for
the local menu.


Possible wording

A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive
navigation links. Navigation elements should be established using
order or unordered lists. When there are more than X links on a
page, navigation elements should be coded using h tags.

I'm not sure if the order and unordered list helps speech users. But
I believe it would make it easier to test a site. Maybe not, cause I
use order and unordered list for other things as well.




Please take a few minutes to provide feedback on the quality of
service you received. The Department of Education values your
feedback as a customer. Commissioner John L. Winn is committed to
continuously assessing and improving the level and quality of
services provided to you by Department staff. Simply use the link
below. Thank you in advance for completing the survey.


http://data.fldoe.org/cs/default.cfm?staff= = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = |
17:57:05%20Fri%2023%20Feb%202007

From: Andi Snow-Weaver
Date: Mon, Feb 26 2007 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

Jamie wrote:

I've been looking through the wiki and couldn't tell if the discuss
regarding the current requirement of skip navigation ended up
including some type of structured navigation included in the draft.

<end of Jamie's comment>

Sorry I didn't document this more clearly. When we discussed this, we
favored something like what WCAG 2.0 has that requires structure in the
content which would enable user agents and assistive technologies to
provide efficient navigation to important content on the page. I will be
putting forward a more concrete proposal on this soon for our report to the
TEITAC.

Andi

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Tue, Feb 27 2007 7:50 AM
Subject: Re: Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

Andi wrote:
"Sorry I didn't document this more clearly. When we discussed this, we
favored something like what WCAG 2.0 has that requires structure in the
content which would enable user agents and assistive technologies to
provide efficient navigation to important content on the page. I will be
putting forward a more concrete proposal on this soon for our report to
the TEITAC."

Does anyone feel this is something which is possible to reduce to an
automated testable condition? If so, it will need a hard scoping.

For example:

When a web page contains content that is logically separated, a
navigation method shall be provided that allows navigation to be
executed from the keyboard or alternate pointing device via use of
mark-up.

To be honest, I'd like to require that pages that have logical
separators and navigation features, include semantic information, or
meta-data defining the logical structure. is that possible?

Maybe a requirement that when pages include logical content separators,
that some indicator exists on the page. This would make this far more
testable. Once we start down the "efficient navigation " path we are
digging subjective dirt in my opinion.


This wouldn't mirror W3C and would be a plunge.
Just a thought.




Allen Hoffman -- 202-447-0303
DHS Office on Accessible Systems & Technology

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Andi
Snow-Weaver
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 3:26 PM
To: TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

Jamie wrote:

I've been looking through the wiki and couldn't tell if the discuss
regarding the current requirement of skip navigation ended up including
some type of structured navigation included in the draft.

<end of Jamie's comment>

Sorry I didn't document this more clearly. When we discussed this, we
favored something like what WCAG 2.0 has that requires structure in the
content which would enable user agents and assistive technologies to
provide efficient navigation to important content on the page. I will be
putting forward a more concrete proposal on this soon for our report to
the TEITAC.

Andi

From: Smith, Jamie
Date: Tue, Feb 27 2007 9:25 PM
Subject: Re: Group D: 22(o) skip navigation

Thanks for the clarification. I definitely will be glad to see coding required to assist with navigation.