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Re: Unordered Lists

for

From: Thomas Jedenfelt
Date: Aug 12, 2005 11:12AM

Patrick,

If I, by my questions in this thread, have treated you (or any other person at WebAIM forum) unfairly, I apologize.

I was afraid this might happened, as Web forums cannot show the mood of the questions.

I see Web professionals make different choices, and I want to find out which choice of coding techniques benefits the users the most, or if it does at all.

I have not yet found a forum where people who use non-graphical browsers discuss the Web's usability and accessibility.

Could someone point to such a forum?

Regards,
Thomas Jedenfelt



----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick H. Lauke"
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005

>
> Thomas Jedenfelt wrote:
>
> > How do you know that UL and OL does not have any significant
> > differences as list of links for users with non-graphical
> > browsers?
> > (you mentioned that you did tests on your org's Web site with a
> > screen reader some time ago)
>
> Because I also spoke to a blind screen reader user who also happens
> to be a web developer in the very early stages of the design
> process, and he expressed no concerns about using unordered lists
> for the type of navigation we envisaged. In fact, he was doing the
> same thing himself on his sites. Representative? Of course
> not...but a pragmatic decision by which I stand.
>
> > If OL would prove to be more user friendly than UL,
>
> If there was proof that our navigation as an OL was better than the
> current navigation...
>
> As it stands, the way pages are navigated, our flat lists of links
> (as opposed to complex, nested lists as found in things like those
> list-based dropdown menu systems) do not, in my opinion and the
> opinion of our testers at the time, pose any significant problem in
> terms of accessibility, usability, or anything else. If you can
> provide evidence that our particular navigation would be hugely
> improved if I switched from UL to OL, then I'm willing to
> reconsider...
>
> > would you say that your organisation's Web accessibility policy
> > gives higher priority to the usability of your Web site rather
> > than its coding semantics?
>
> I would say that the policy strikes a balance between all factors
> (usability, standards, etc).
>
> > (Also, is really DIV proper semantics as content structure for
> > list of links in your Breadcrumb bar?)
>
> Ah, I see we reached the inevitable point in every standards
> conversation where somebody who doesn't like a certain argument
> goes off to find dubious markup on the other's site and by
> mentioning it tries to invalidate anything else that the other
> person might have said before? Good good. No, the DIV is not the
> best semantic fit, and if I coded the templates again today (rather
> than having to reuse the templates I created over 2 years ago) I
> would go for an ordered list in the particular case of breadcrumbs
> (as discussed many times before both on this and other web
> standards lists). However, the DIV currently used (for a variety of
> reasons which are to do with the devolved authoring on the site) is
> neutral as a construct. Using a neutral element is certainly not on
> par with using an element that is plainly wrong from a structural
> point of view.
>
> > Why not let the students make such tests as a special
> > course/extra study (or what you call it)?
>
> Because I am not working with the students. Just because I work at
> a University does not mean that I get to influence what goes into a
> course or programme of study *sigh*
>
> Anyway, as a general principle: I'm happy to make slight
> concessions when it comes to markup (bending the already fairly
> vague - in certain points - standards) if it has a demonstrable
> positive effect on usability. However, as Jan mentioned "it seems
> to be a screen reader
> problem"...and that's the crux of the issue: current screen readers
> still do not take advantage of web standards, effectively
> encouraging developers to often revert to wrong or at least
> structurally dubious methods. That is exactly the situation that
> the WaSP Accessibility Task Force is going to try and remedy by
> working with screen reader developers. If they do not aknowledge
> standards, then we end up in a situation all to similar to the
> "coding to a specific browser" scenario that we all know too well
> from Internet Explorer...
>
> -- Patrick H. Lauke
> ___________
> re