WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: accessibility of this drop down menu

for

From: Egan, Bim
Date: May 14, 2010 3:39AM

Hi Chuck,

You're right in your description of a dropdown list navigation, but the
type of menu that started this thread is a bit different, the dropdown
list and navigation you describe is created using the form component
SELECT element, and the problem you've described occurs when it is
activated using a JavaScript onChange event handler, which as you say,
fires off before the user has had a chance to work out what the options
are. The menu that Angela asked about is a bit different, it's just a
menu full of related links, often used for site wide navigation. If you
look at the example she sent, you'll see the difference.
http://www.sitepoint.com/examples/megadropdowns/completed.html#

The menu links from "Stuff for him" to the end of the list all have
links under them, but these are only available to you if you can use a
mouse, and as the top level, i.e. "Stuff for him" link doesn't do
anything except act as an anchor for the mouse activated list, there's
nowhere to go for keyboard only users. I imagine that this would also
be challenging for voice input access tech users, so it's a practice
that really needs to be avoided.

Cheers,

Bim