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RE: Making Discussion Forums Accessible

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Jul 9, 2003 5:53AM

Julian,

Let me see if I understand this. The page consists of 2 sections. One
section is a listing of all the messages. The other section is a view of an
individual message.

In the message list section, new messages are flagged with a visual
indicator -- I am assuming that is a graphic or a symbol.

Users sometimes need to follow multiple threads. Some users employ the
forum for conducting virtual meetings where they need to refresh the view
regularly and locate new messages.

It is too bad that neither HTML nor XHTML make any provisions for a
multicolumn listbox. That might fix this situation rather easily.

My first suggestion would be to structure the page well. I would suggest
giving each major section a header using an H1 or H2 tag. The message list
I would suggest making a table. You might even want to consider using some
structure for the invidiual mail itself, since it will probably even have
sections to it, such as the addressee information (date, subject, author,
etc.) and a message body.

This will help people who use AT that allows them to move through the
structure of a page.

You could also then add "skip" links. I do have an idea that either is
really good or totally unworkable. Instead of just placing "skip" links at
the top of the page, why not set up an access key for each section? I
cannot recall at the moment what the restrictions are for the ACCESSKEY
attribute. However, perhaps you could set up an access key that would take
the user directly to a section or sub-section. Of course, you will most
likely need to figure a good way to communicate what the access keys are to
the users.

Regarding the message list and the new message indicator -- another or
additional method for clearly indicating which messages are new might be to
seperate them from the others.

Instead of having a single message list, you could have a seperate section
listing just "New Messages" or "Recent Messages." You could even reorganize
the message list section by having the new message sub-section at the top
with the "old" message list appearing after. If you do that, it might help
structurally if the two subsections were seperate tables. If the page
allows the user to sort messages, two tables might also make it possible for
users to sort the messages in different ways that might be useful for them.

I have other ideas, but they would probably require you to make changes to
components other than just the user interface.

Tim
Tim Harshbarger
Tim Harshbarger
Disability Support
State Farm Insurance Companies
Phone: (309) 766-0154
E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>