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Re: Skip nav links on mobile

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Oct 30, 2019 8:26PM

Hi Birkir, the understanding document for 2.4.1 seems to only allow for blocks of repeated content that are small. It states "Small repeated sections such as individual words, phrases or single links are not considered blocks for the purposes of this provision."

In terms of installing a plug-in or extension -- in my experience this is not practical on mobile browsers most which don't support any extensions although a favlet could be run if the content security policy of the site didn't block it. But yes, your argument is one that I've also seen around focus -- why require developers to provide good visual focus when we can just have a focus extension. Why require developers to indicate languages when computers today can detect different languages. So it's a balance. Ultimately, most of us would like to see these features built into browsers on all devices -- but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----

From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 9:55 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Skip nav links on mobile

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.


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
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> glen walker
> Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 5:05 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Skip nav links on mobile
>
> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do
> not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender
> and know the content is safe.
>
>
> Just a minor nit on what Birkir said about "To meet this requirement
> you technically only have to implement one of a sip link, ARIA
> landmarks or a logical heading structure". I know Birkir didn't mean
> that those were the only options but I wanted to explicitly point that
> out in case some of the newer people on this list didn't realize that.
> 2.4.1 only says a "mechanism" must exist to bypass blocks of content.
> It does not say what that mechanism should be. Sailesh's comment
> about the menu being collapsed is a "mechanism" to handle that,
> although if you don't get the collapsed menu on desktop, you would
> need some other mechanism, which is typically one of the options Birkir mentioned.
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


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