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Re: Skip nav links on mobile

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Oct 30, 2019 7:54PM

Jonathan
What would be your rule of thumb for how many tab stops need to be in
the block for it to be worth adding a skip link (remember that the
skip link itself adds a tab stop unless you use a dropdown of some
sort).
I'd say that there would have to be at least 5 tabstops, possibly 8 or
9 to be worth adding a skip link. And I'd rather have functionality to
collapse repeated blocks of content than inserting another keyboard
only link into it, it benefits more users.

Also, generally speaking, I've always found it a bit weird that we
assume keyboard only users are not able to install a widget to
navigate by headings or landmarks. We don't build screen reader
experience directly into the webpage, we provide semantics that are
clear and rely on the screen reader user to obtain and install the
software to take advantage of it.
Speech recognition software does (and if it doesn't, that's on the
vendors of that software to fix it).

Why is keyboard navigation any different? Implementing a keyboard
navigation widget to jump to landmarks or headings is infinitely
easier than writing a screen reader, yet we always assume that
keyboard only users are not able to find, install or use such a
widget.
I'm not disagreeing with your assertion, the fact we've always taken
this stance as a community is just a question that has bothered me for
some time.


On 10/30/19, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> While headings and landmarks may be available to screen reader users --
> navigation by these features is not built into most browsers and for some
> keyboard only users who don't use screen readers would require an extension
> or favlet be run unless a widget was placed on the site to jump to these
> areas. So either skip links built directly into the site or some sort of
> Skip to or Landmark based script would be needed to ensure the access to the
> widest group. These mechanisms need to be available for each block of
> repeated content -- so just a main element or h1 to skip to the main content
> might not be enough if you have multiple blocks of repeat content on a page
> that don't use another mechanism such as each block in a landmark or
> preceded by a heading.
>
> Jonathan
>
>