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Re: Frames

for

From: Terence de Giere
Date: Feb 9, 2003 2:11PM

While accessibility guidelines call for using the TITLE attribute to
name frames, a number of technologies (for example, the Lynx text
browser) do not process this but use the NAME attribute instead, so
Jukka Korpela's advice on using NAME as well as TITLE needs to be
followed. Unlike TITLE, NAME cannot have spaces, but one can use
underscores for spaces. Because NAME may be the only source for
information on the content of the frames for some users, the wording
should be human readable, rather than the cryptic code often used by
developers, and give a good idea of what is in each frame. For example,
instead of "left_01" and "right_01" one can use "navigation" and
"content" or "main_content". With the TITLE attribute, one can be more
verbose.

The big downside for using frames with non sighted users is the content
of the frames is not experienced simultaneously by the users as it is
with those of normal vision, and navigation becomes more like hunting
through a maze, and even with good titles (and names), one still must
switch from frame to frame one at a time and discover and remember how
they are related.

In 1996 Jakob Nielsen wrote that frames were not such a hot idea from
the usability standpoint, and although his article is almost seven years
old, his comments are mostly still valid today, except for the
percentage of users whose browsers cannot see frames at all. See
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html

Terence de Giere
<EMAIL REMOVED>



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