WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: avoiding tabbing through drop downs

for

From: Al Sparber
Date: Mar 5, 2010 6:24PM

From: < <EMAIL REMOVED> >

> On Fri, 5 Mar 2010, Jared Smith wrote:
>> The main navigation item would trigger the display of the sub-menu
>> items with onmouseover only. ...
>> The main menu item would also be a standard, accessible link to a
>> secondary page that provides the sub-navigation links in standard
>> HTML,
>
> Not to reignite the argument that happened the last time this
> topic came up,

It takes at least 2 to argue :-)

- but I just wanted to state that this is not a
> universally accepted idea.

I agree and I think I stated that pretty clearly in my post (though you are not responding directly to my post).


- In the open source project I
> contribute to, the consensus among keyboard and screen reader
> users is that ARIA-enabled menus are far more usable for us than
> secondary page links alone.

Our testing indicates that creating a page that works for the disabled as if the sub-menus did not even exist always wins out.
Perhaps this kind of testing always has a "power of suggestion" element to it - or perhaps our testers are anomalous.

> Which solution is right for your user
> community depends on knowing the use patterns of your user
> community.

Not clear on that, but it sounds really smart :-)

Seriously, ARIA is very nice for certain types of applications, but our testing clearly indicates that most un-coached testers do
not understand what is going on. It's a definite departure from the norm.

But, hey, if it works for you and your user community then it's a good strategy.

--
Al Sparber - PVII
http://www.projectseven.com
Dreamweaver Menus | Galleries | Widgets
http://www.projectseven.com/go/hgm
The Ultimate Web 2.0 Carousel