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Re: Accessible menus

for

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Apr 23, 2003 9:26AM

In general there is not a good way to create accessible hierarchical menus
in web pages. The major problems are:

1. When author colors or fonts are overridden the menus become unreadable
from background content and the menu text overlapping each other.

2. Usually do not support keyboard access to the menus

3. Screen readers cannot use them

4. Pull down menus are also considered less usable by the general
population, since users do not expect them and it takes users more time and
effort to review and select items from the menus than it does from a series
of web resources with static links.

Jon


At 05:05 PM 4/23/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>Firstly hello, as this is my first post to the list.
>
>I've recently been learing about building accessible websites. I now test
>all websites that I build in lynx on OSX.
>
>I'm not sure how to go about making a hierachial menu accessible ie:
>
>Menu1
>Menu2
>Menu3
>
>subMenu1.1
>subMenu1.2
>subMenu1.3
>
>subMenu2.1
>subMenu2.2
>
>You get the idea I hope. Now the submenus are in <div> tags. I can place the
>div next to the asscoiated Menu on the page - but how do I make it clear
>that it is a submenu? Or is this just impossible with these kind of menu
>systems?
>
>Regards
>Benjer
>
>
>
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Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund



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