WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: mouseover/hover and keyboard accessible expandablemenu?

for

From: ckrugman
Date: Nov 6, 2009 1:55PM

Yes, this can sometimes be an issue. The real issue depends on how items are
labeled and the use of text appearing in an image or in Flash format as is
done on many marketing or internet survey sites. Of course, images or Flash
format is not readable by any screen reader.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Megginson" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] mouseover/hover and keyboard accessible
expandablemenu?


> Hi Chuck,
>
> In regards to the arrow keys, there may be no difficulty with navigating
> this way as long as the menu items are inline with the parent link.
>
> The example at HTML Dog provides a good example of this (sidebar: I also
> like the list structure to denote hierarchy):
> http://htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/example/vertical.html
>
> The child links are inline with the parent link in the source code in this
> example. Screen readers like JAWS (virtual cursor) will read the content
> in the order it appears in the source code.
>
> When developers use CSS to display the sub-menu items, the content should
> appear inline with the parent link(s). I have seen where developers place
> the menu items at the end of the source code and position it visually in
> the correct place. A user navigating with arrow keys will not be able to
> identify the content because it is virtually at the end of the page.
>
> I often recommend sighted testers to disable styles on the page (FireFox)
> and inspect where the dynamic content appears. If the content appears
> disjointed, that's how users in Virtual Cursor mode (JAWS) will access the
> information.
>
> Thanks
> Jason
>
>