WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Popup menus accessible?

for

From: Joel Ward
Date: Sep 26, 2001 3:12PM

Hi Brandi,
Question for you, Brandi. Will the popup menu text include links or just
descriptive text, like in the current site?
If they include links, then....
My gut reaction is to say no, they aren't accessible. This is because they
are triggered by a device-dependent event, a mouseover.
I'm not sure if there is a way to make such functionality accessible to
assistive technology.
A way to make it accessible is to have alternate ways to get the same list
of links, e.g. a link to an HTML page with the same links.
An example can be seen at http://www.nsf.gov/ . Mouseover the menu at the
top to view the menu and then click on each of headings, like "Funding."
You can see the same links in the menu are also available on the page linked
through the heading. This way, users of AT can access the menu text without
actually viewing the popup menu.
Viral also has a good point. If a user turns off CSS and/or JavaScript, the
menus won't work at all. So what does a user do then? The popup menus
won't work for them. That situation can apply to anyone, not just users of
AT.
Joel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brandi Hess" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM forum" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 4:22 PM
Subject: Popup menus accessible?

> Hello all,
> I'm working on a new design for our University Library. They would like
> popup menus to appear when the cursor hovers (mouseover) above a link.
They
> would like the popup to list what type of information can be found by
> clicking on that link. Even though the link on the page is part of a
> graphic, the popup will be text based.
>
> Is this compliant? Does this meet Priority One?
>
> The Library site is currently working in this manner. The designer who
> worked on their site last (which was several years ago) put this
> functionality in place. Now that I'm supposed to redesign it, they want
the
> same functionality added to their new design.
>
> Link to their current site.
> http://www.usi.edu/library/library.htm
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
>
> ---
> Brandi Schwartz Hess
> Graphic Designer, Web Services
> University of Southern Indiana
> http://www.usi.edu
>
>
>