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RE: repetitive navigation

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Feb 5, 2003 6:17PM

I'm not entirely sure what it is that you're asking, but I'll start writing,
and maybe some of my words will apply to your situation.

Short answer:
1. You should put a text link at the very top of the page that says "skip to
main content" (or something similar). The destination of that link should be
an anchor tag that is placed right before the beginning of the main content.
2. You probably don't need to tell the user that the menus are javascript,
but you do need to provide an alternative method of accessing the same
content. Just make the main links keyboard accessible and


Longer answer:

Part 1:

It is best to provide a text link that allows users to skip to the main
content, rather than just invisible images with alt text, because the
invisible images only serve people who use screen readers. There are other
people who could benefit from these links. For example, there are people who
cannot use a mouse, but who still can see. Some people with certain types of
motor disabilities fit into this category. These people will appreciate the
ability to tab to a link at the top of the page that allows them to tab down
to the main content. It saves them from having to make the extra tab clicks.
For an individual who must make every tab click with by moving the head, for
example, this will prevent some fatigue.

Part 2:

The Hiermenus (Hierarchical menus) are written in DHTML (Dynamic HTML),
which means that they are a combination of HTML, JavaScript and CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets). They are a sophisticated system that has gone
through several generations of coding revisions.

The first thing that you should know about such menus is that they will not
be directly accessible to people using screen readers in their default
configuration, for two reasons:

1. People using screen readers use the keyboard rather than the mouse. If
the menus are set to appear when you mouse over them, nothing will happen
when you tab to them using a keyboard.
2. The DHTML itself is not accessible to a screen reader even if they could
access it with the keyboard.

I have seen some valiant efforts to make javascript directly accessible to
both the keyboard and the screen readers. To be honest, the efforts that I
have seen have been more interesting than actually useful. I say this
because the menu systems usually only work in a select group of browsers and
do not work consistenly even among modern browsers. If anyone has examples
of DHTML menus that do not have these problems, I'd love to see them.

Your best approach is to make it so that your top level links are keyboard
accessible and that they go to a real destination when you click on them.
For an example of NON-functional top level links, see www.web500.com (This
is a BAD example). For an example of FUNCTIONAL top level menus, see
http://www.netiq.com/webtrends/default.asp (this is a good example of
clickability, but it is a bad example of other things).

Once you have ensured that your top level links are both keyboard accessible
and functional, you have to make sure that the destination pages contain the
same information as the submenu items. Ideally, these submenu items will be
at the top of the page, so that people don't have to hit tab a hundred times
to get to the submenu items. You could accomplish this in a couple of ways:
1. Create a page that has ONLY the submenu items (e.g. no fancy layout, no
graphics)
2. Integrate the submenu items into the design of the destination page, so
that the page looks like it is supposed to be used by everyone and not just
those with disabilities.
Most developers prefer method 2, because it means that your main page and
your "accessible" page are the same page. You only have to maintain one
page, one version. It also means that you don't have an "ugly" page messing
up your site.

Either way is fine, as long as ALL of the submenu items are present in the
destination page, and they are easy to find, meaning that they are at or
near the top of the page.

You don't need to link to a site map. You should have one, but I recommend
the above methods rather than linking to a site map for disability access.

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



-----Original Message-----
From: Dozier, Mae [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 2:19 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: repetitive navigation


I'm sending this question again, as I did not get any answers and I'm hoping
someone will answer this time:

We've just bought and I am implementing Hiermenus navigation system. And,
we're redesigning both Internet and Intranet for updated designs and to make
them 508 compliant. I know there is a way to put in the page both the link
to the main content of the page as well as the explanation that this is a
javascript navigation menu and send them to the site index that has text
links. Can someone help with how to do this?

Thanks, Mae




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