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Re: Skip to content links, what is the current best practice?

for

From: Donald Evans
Date: Jun 30, 2011 8:57AM

Personnally, I like to us CSS to surface a skip link on focus. This is very
easy, needs no JavaScript. And is available to the keyboard only user as
well.

See:
http://websiteaccessibility.donaldevans.com/?p=1020




On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi everyone
>
> Another question, but I think it may be an interesting discussion point for
> all.
> Btw, thanks for great response on AJAX/ARIA, I am just waiting for the
> website admin to clear up two minor matters with me before I ask the
> relevant questions.
> I have been contemplating accessibility and "skip to content" practices.
> It used to be that screen reader users (myself included) relied on
> these links to get me to the interesting area of the page. As a screen
> reader user today I much prefer a sensible heading structure, and I
> find myself typically exploring a page using the "n" key or "skip to
> next element of different type" in Jaws. I am not sure if that is just
> me or if users generally use this method.
> However, I have done some reading on it and it is confusing.
> On the one hand there is discussion on people who need to use keyboard
> simulation and canot navigate through html elements like screen reader
> users do. Therefore a "skip to content" link is still necessary for
> them. On the other hand a large part of same discuussion focuses on
> hiding the link by positioning it off-screen which would indicate that
> it is intended for screen reader use specifically, see
> http://www.jimthatcher.com/webcourse4.htm
> (excellent guide in my humble opinion, but may be a few years out of
> date in some respects).
>
> So, do you recommend a "skip to content" link for non-screen reader
> keyboard users, or shold it be entirely replaced by sensible us of
> html elements such as headings or landmarks?
> Cheers
> -B
>