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Section 508 - Skipping Repetetive Links

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From: Joel Sanda
Date: Oct 5, 2001 3:54PM

Hi all -
I emailed the Access Board with this question (but never received a
response) and am wondering what you all think.
If a site uses frames, that are otherwise compliant with Section 508
requirements, and one frame holds nothing but navigation, does that permit
sufficient skipping of repetitive navigation links?
There are several problems encountered with adding a simple hyperlink and
target that exists after the section of links. The first is that CSS
technique "display: none;" will not render content in JAWS for Windows
3.5/3.7. This means the link will be visible to sighted users. The second
problem is with dynamically created sites, which makes it difficult and very
time consuming to add the target link to the frame that is the most logical
one to jump to after skipping the links.
Finally, by not adding the skipping over links feature, and keeping all
navigation isolated in one frame, it's much easier to skip navigation with
Window-Eyes and JAWS. This technique also works in any user agent that
supports frames, and hence navigation by frame. If the frames are logically
named and have sufficient descriptions via the title attribute, this can
really speed up page navigation with links lists, as well - provided the
assistive technology supports them.
Thanks for any feedback!
Joel Sanda
Product Manager
Product Engineering & Technology
-------------------------------------------------------www.eCollege.com
eCollege
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p 303.873.7400 x3021
f 303.632.1721