WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Section 508 - Skipping Repetetive Links

for

From: Terence de Giere
Date: Oct 9, 2001 7:52AM

Joel
The Access Board rule for skipping navigation links was designed to help
users using screen readers and audio browsers to get quickly to the main
content of the page without having to cycle through navigation menus
typically found at the top and left of Web pages. Because non visual
browsing does not allow one to just see the content and visually skim
over the links the user must hunt for it when listening to a page or
using Braille. That means cycling through top and/or left menus on each
page until content is found.
This rule is for pages that have the navigation menus on the page with
the content. When navigation and content are on separate pages in a
frameset, the skip link is not really necessary. What is necessary for
frames is the title of the frames has to give the user information about
what material is in a particular frame. "Navigation" as a title for the
frame that has the navigation links is all that is needed, and "Content"
for the content frame. When a site is organized this way there is
nothing to skip over in the navigation frame since all it contains is
navigation.
The few users left that use browsers that do not support frames at all
will still not be able to navigate such a site since both the navigation
and content pages will be invisible to a frameless browser unless you
provide <NOFRAMES> content for the site that allows users to get to all
the navigation and content. The Access Board rules do not specify that
you must provide <NOFRAMES> material. They only specify that the frames
must be titled.
A frameset Web site appears more like a maze than a set of Web pages to
many kinds of special access technology. A text or audio browser that
supports frames does not present the frames simultaneously, but
serially. The main advantage of frames for visual browsing is lost when
one cannot see the pages. On opening the initial frameset page one might
experience "Link to a frame: navigation" and "Link to a frame: Content"
on a page. One then selects the navigation frame, finds the desired
link, activates it and gets a content page. To get back to the
navigation menu, the user must then go back to the navigation page. This
is not too complicated for a two window frameset, but if more windows
are used the process gets complicated and more difficult.
The recent HTML specifications have been eliminating frames:
HTML 4.0/4.01 Strict
XHTML 1.0 Strict
XHTML Basic
XHTML 1.1
Terence de Giere
<EMAIL REMOVED>

========================From: Joel Sanda < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Section 508 - Skipping Repetitive Links
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?
[snip]
Thanks for any feedback!
Joel Sanda
Product Manager
Product Engineering & Technology

---
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/