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Re: question re:javascript menus

for

From: Reisz, Wesley T Mr USAREC
Date: Aug 24, 2001 8:18AM

<snip>
||We used to use javascript menus on our site to eliminate some of the
||clutter. Can anyone tell me for sure if they are accessible. I have
||removed them because I would rather err on the side of being accessible
||than not but would love to use them if possible.
</snip>

Here's what we do...
First keep one thing in mind, the purpose of Section 508 is to provide
accessibility to people with handicaps, not to give you a set of guidelines
on building pages. The guidelines are ways to help you achieve
accessibility, not the requirement it self.
Javascript navigation menus can really save space and help you organize a
site well from a visual (point and click) standpoint. So we (US Army) use
them, and then we insert <noscript></noscript> tags in the page. If
Javascript is disabled (or unavailable), the noscript tags are enabled;
otherwise, they are not shown. In the <noscript> tags, we place text and a
link to a text-based map of the links shown in the Javascript dynamic menu.
Now we also take several other approaches, but I think that is the easiest
and most applicable to this thread. I'd show you a sample, but we are on a
extranet with dedicated VPN access for the US Army.
Wesley T. Reisz
Recruiting Central Developer