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horizontal vs. vertical navigation

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From: Nathalie Sequeira
Date: Aug 27, 2012 3:11AM

Hello all,

I am currently needing to decide between horizontal and vertical
navigation for a website redesign.

To make sure a maximum amount of people will be able to access the
information with ease, we have asked our local People First organization
which of the two models is more easily navigable for people with
cognitive difficulties.

While their confirmation that vertical navigation is definitely easier
to understand makes sense, in international circles I see lots of
horizontal navigation being adopted even on People First sites.

Thus my question:
What are your experiences on how difficult horizontal navigation really is?
Is there anything to keep especially in mind when designing a horizontal
navigation to be as inclusive as possible? (obvious things such as
underlying semantic markup, static subnavigation etc. aside)

Or is it really as it would appear to us at first hearing, that if we
want people with cognitive disabilities to have equal access to websites
vertical navs are unavoidably a MUST?

Thanking you in advance for your views on this!
Nathalie

--
Nathalie Sequeira
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