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Re: source order

for

From: John Watts
Date: Apr 8, 2008 6:50AM

To play both sides of the fence here, I think it is impossible to deliver information to everyone in the manner they want. People use the web differently and have their own pre-defined notions of convention based either on personal preference, past experience, or disability. I have heard from users of screen readers that they expect the nav menu to come first in source order, only to hear the next day from a user of a braille device that he prefers the content to be as close to the top as possible. Some with mobility impairments, like the OP, prefer tabbing to content first, perhaps others also have decided by convention that they would like to reach the navigation first. I use a mobile device to read blogs and RSS feeds, I certainly appreciate not having to scroll down excessively to get to the content I'm really interested in.

I do believe that this expectation of source order is a hold-over from table-based designs. Now that many sites (and there are many - as the OP mentioned, how many Blogger blogs are out there?) have re-arranged their source, I would like to know exactly how much of an obstacle this is to users of different assistive technologies. My anecdotal evidence suggests not much, often it is the opposite, but I would be interested in any research any organization has done into the matter. I have only seen the study produced by usability.com.au, and it dealt only with users of screen readers, had a small sample of individuals, and made a few assumptions based on a single participant.

In a perfect world, perhaps we could shape the source order to a user's preference with XML/XSLT, but it would appear the wild and wooly days of the web aren't over yet.

----- Original Message ----
From: Mike Bleasdale < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Tuesday, 8 April, 2008 8:40:24 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] source order

thank you all for the replies. skip links are great but still not
implemented enough. as i tab through a site, i personally like reaching the
content. i am cued to what has focus by the browser applying a dashed
background. i believe that all the blogger templates are created like that
which makes it easier for me. i had thought that since most web development
bloggers ... zeldman, css zen garden, cedarholm ...etc appear to put content
ahead of anything in the sides, that was proper. it seems that many have a
small nav in the masthead which is easy to tab past but it is the large navs
in the side that are more troublesome. i do use firefox however which lets
me jump to any link by typing it out. when i have to use ie...it is more of
a pain. thanks

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> Jared Smith wrote:
>
> > - Using absolute positioning can cause other issues (pages that break
> > when fonts are enlarged, etc.)
>
> unless you're careful and also use relative units for your absolute
> positioning - which sounds like a paradox, but actually works nicely.
>
> > - If users disable styles, suddenly the order is different than what
> > they saw visually.
>
> even more common: a sighted user that has stylesheets enabled and
> expects the visual tab order to match the onscreen layout may well be
> confused if it isn't the case.
>
> A "mechanism/method to skip" has been mentioned in relation to 508. This
> is also in WCAG 2. Worth noting, though, that this mechanism doesn't
> necessarily have to be something that the developer actively provides
> (e.g. a skip link), but it can be (at least for WCAG 2) simply grouping
> things in logical containers (e.g. marking up navbar as a list) and/or
> adding headers before the navigation and the content...the active
> skipping can then be taken care of by assistive technology, for instance.
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
> ______________________________________________________________
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