WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: skip navigational links, image maps

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Aug 14, 2001 1:03PM

[Carol] but it doesn't quite work right in Opera either (using control and
up/down arrows instead of tabs.
[Paul] Another keyboard shortcut for Opera is the "A" key (to go forward
through links) and the "Q" key (to go backwards). The tab key is used to
jump between form elements.
[Carol] The main difference I noticed in the code is that the WebAIM site is
validated to HTML 4.01 transitional, while our site is not quite up to that
standard. Could this be the problem? Also, the anchor name for the content
on our
site contained an underscore ("_"), while the WebAIM anchor name did not. I
feel
I'm grasping at straws here!
[Paul] Having valid HTML is always a good starting point. It may or may not
solve your particular dilemma, but it will likely solve others in the
process. I'd start there. One thing that you may also want to look at is the
size of your browser window. This is most noticeable on pages with a small
(or relatively small) amount of text with empty space at the bottom of the
browser window. I know this sounds strange, but if there is no scrollbar in
the right side of the browser, links which go to a destination on the same
page just don't seem to work. The browser has nowhere to scroll down to when
you select the link. This wouldn't be so bad if it were just a visual
phenomenon, but I've noticed that the browser will not pick up where it is
supposed to if the browser window does not leave some room for scrolling
down. So when I'm using a screen reader and select a "skip navigation" link,
the page doesn't scroll, and then the screen reader starts reading the
adjacent information (which should have been skipped), rather than the
content down below where it should have jumped. The only real solution to
this strange behavior is either to write longer pages or to resize your
browser window so that part of the page is out of the visual area. If your
links work when you try them within a smaller browser window, then it's not
your fault. It's the browser's behavior that is the culprit. There isn't
much you can do to solve this problem, except perhaps to write longer pages,
which isn't much of a solution at all. As far as the underscore in the
anchor name, you may as well try it without one. Who knows. Maybe it will
work. Let me know how it goes.
Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM: Web Accessibility in Mind (www.webaim.org)
Center for Persons with Disabilities (www.cpd.usu.edu)
Utah State University (www.usu.edu)