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Re: was: Hidden Skip link have SEO impact? now: the value of skip links

for

From: Al Sparber
Date: Mar 16, 2011 4:03PM

On 3/16/2011 5:50 PM, <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Julie Romanowski wrote:
>
>> I believe skip links can be omitted for simple web pages. The biggest benefit of skip links comes when accessing complex web pages with multiple focusable items. For example, if there are many focusable items, such as a large drop-down menu, located before a registration form, a keyboard users would have to tab multiple times to get to the form. Including a skip link on the page can help reduce the number of keystrokes, making navigation much easier.
>
> Although skip links are often hidden via CSS. As a keyboard user I know how to find them by turning off styles, but are there actually a large number of keyboard users who know how to find hidden skip links?

Probably not, but if they appear on focus, then keyboard users will see
them when they tab into them. So I guess hidden offscreen serves the
screen reader user, while making it visible on focus should serve the
keyboard user.

As it happens we are prototyping a new product and it might be helpful
in this discussion to view it.

http://www.projectseven.com/products/staging/hps/mercury_01.htm

It's a tool for building a single-page site so it is very
special-purpose. But go ahead and check out the tabbing functionality
and let me know what you think.

It's an early prototype so feel free to be as candid as you please :-)

--
Al Sparber - PVII
http://www.projectseven.com
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