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Re: Rethinking "Skip to Content"

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From: Dagmar Noll
Date: Dec 3, 2004 10:16AM

Both Mike Brockington and Jeff Coburn bring up the point that 'skip' implies
going somewhere else on the page, and without that it implies travel to a
completely separate page.

This is something I considered as well when I first began my musings.
However, it would seem to me that the convention of 'skip' indicating a move
within a page is limited to the 'skip/go' situation, and not all same-page
target links. I rarely see the word 'skip' worked into sub-menus that jump
folks to topics within a particular page, and I always assumed that
individuals using the links were ok with being jumped about the same page
without knowing that's where they were going.

However- and this will take this discussion off in another direction- for
what it is worth, as a user I have always had an aversion to page targets.
This aversion began back when I was first introduced to the web world on a
very slow modem. If I clicked on a link, unaware it was a same-page target
link, and the page was a slow-loader, it would inevitable jump me (albeit
temporarily) to something that had nothing to do with the topic I was
interested in. Eventually I learned to look for the # in the link and simply
be patient, but I have always found same-page target links disorienting.
Nevertheless, I sometimes use them because I think, well, that something is
just something wrong with me. :)

Am I unique, or has this been an issue for others? How is it addressed, if
it is addressed at all?

Perhaps the answer here lies in the comments of a couple posters regarding
letting the user agent determine navigation. But I believe Mike noted the
poor support of this at the moment. So...in the meantime, what?

Dagmar