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Re: mouseover/hover and keyboard accessible expandablemenu?

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Nov 6, 2009 9:55AM

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Karl Groves
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I do not agree with this statement. While I would agree that the root
> menu item should be a real link to an actual destination, I hardly regard
> it as accessible or usable to not provide programmatic access and visual
> focus to sub-menu options.

There are really only three approaches to such menu accessibility:

1. Force the user to listen to and navigate through all menu items.
This is not efficient. It is certainly not the same experience sighted
and mouse users have. The hierarchy of such menus is hard to convey to
someone listening to them. It's overwhelming and confusing. Hardly
accessible.

2. Program the menu to be technically keyboard/screen reader
accessible. The problem with this approach is that there is no
standard way of doing so. Do you open the menu with space or enter? Do
the arrow keys expand/collapse the menu? Up and down or left and
right? How are you to know if you can't see it? And again, hierarchy
and semantics are nearly impossible to convey with such menus. Without
standard controls, trying to make complex menus accessible is not
likely to result in a good experience. It may be technically
accessible, but effectively a usability nightmare.

3. Hide the sub-menu items from screen reader and keyboard access and
make the main menu item a standard link to a page which provides
redundant access to each of the sub-menu items. I can find no problems
with such an approach. The only drawback with such an approach is that
it is one extra step - hardly as problematic as either of the other
options, in my opinion.

The key here is getting users to the content in an efficient and
effective way. We shouldn't try to force the same menu experience on
them no more than we drag wheelchairs up the stairs in order to give
them the same experience of getting to the second floor.

Jared Smith
WebAIM