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Re: wai-aria presentation roles vs skip links

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From: Alan M. Dalton
Date: Nov 15, 2012 7:06AM

Hi Nancy,

I agree with Birkir, Monique, and Lucy: if your website needs a skip-link,
Wai-Aria landmark roles are not a substitute.

However, not every website needs a skip-link: I didn’t put a skip-link on
http://accessibility.ie because the content comes before the navigation on
each webpage. WCAG 2.0 allows that: “[…] if a set of navigation links is
provided at the bottom of a web page[,] providing a "skip" link may be
unnecessary” ( http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-skip.html ).
This design has another benefit: as Luke Wroblewski says, “Focusing on
content first, navigation second gets people to the information and tasks
they want
quickly” ( http://www.alistapart.com/articles/organizing-mobile/ ).

Regards,
Alan.

Alan Dalton
Access Officer and Accessibility Development Advisor
http://accessibility.ie
National Disability Authority http://www.nda.ie
25 Clyde Road, Dublin 4, Ireland http://goo.gl/maps/gOjcj