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Re: Skip Links and ARIA Landmarks for Sighted Users

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From: Jim Homme
Date: Aug 13, 2016 2:47PM

Hi,
This is my position briefly on this topic. I like to avoid using off-screen controls at all. Keyboard-only users get confused when they tab onto controls and don't see focus. It also confuses issues when blind people try to get help from customer service people without disabilities, because they may not realize that some content is off-screen. Further more, it's a nice feature that JAWS has built in recently to jump directly to the main landmark of a page. Of course, this depends, as do any other landmatrks, on correct coding practices. Until browsers allow keyboard-only users to jump among landmarks, I see no choice but to continue to use skip links or some other similar mechanism. I feel that there should be as fiew of them as possible, though, because it forces the keyboard-only user to tab onto another link every time developers include it.

Hopefully I didn't miss something in this tirade.

Jim


=========
Jim Homme,
Accessibility Consultant, Web developer,
Bender HighTest Team,
Bender Consulting Services, inc.
412-787-8567,
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >,
http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions

On Aug 13, 2016, at 4:39 PM, Whitney Quesenbery < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >> wrote:

What about skip links that are invisible until reached by tabbing?

I've seen these in a few places and thought they were an elegant compromise
between an uncluttered visual interface and good keyboard navigation. In
several of the examples, the link appears in a blank spot on the interface,
with a strong outline, so it's easy to read.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 3:54 PM _mallory < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >> wrote:

On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 10:35:55AM -0600, Jared Smith wrote:
I'd love to have this functionality. I know there have been efforts to
get browsers to support this functionality, but I don't think it's
gotten anywhere. If it ever happened, the ugly, obtrusive hack of
"skip" links could finally go away.

I kept using Opera 12 for as long as possible for exactly this reason:
spatial navigation and heading navigation. Lovely. Gone when Opera
switched to the Blink engine.

cheers,
_mallory
--
*Whitney Quesenbery*
(lists) <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
(work) <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >