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Re: back to top

for

From: Derek Featherstone
Date: Jan 10, 2006 9:40PM

On 1/10/06, Penny Roberts wrote:

>On the other hand using the 'home' key doesn't return tab focus to the
>top whereas a link does. If it is useful to be able to return to the
>top, in my example back to the list of questions, shouldn't the tab
>also be returned to the top?

Interesting distinction between tab focus and what is usually seen as
simply a method to shortcut the "scrolling behaviour" of moving back to
the top of the viewport.

There is a subtle distinction between the two, and its an important one
that I noticed in some recent testing with various users with various
disabilities.

I'd suggest that if you are returning back to a list of questions, the
last place you want to go is back to the top - you actually want to go
back to the list of questions, or a place just before it. Generally -
back to top is about the viewport for sighted mouse users, but its about
returning to some other place and placing the tab focus there for many
many others.

It just so happens that *visually* this may be very close to the
equivalent of scrolling back to the top of the viewport, but for a
person using a screen magnifier or screen reader, going to the top is
not often desirable - they need to reorient themselves, skip over
irrelevant items like navigation (perhaps for the second or third
time?).

"Top" is most definitely not always the best target to be aiming for -
if a designer/developer/whatever doesn't understand that everything
isn't visual, then they are likely to just insert a "back to top" link
without thinking about what they are really trying to accomplish for
*all users*


Cheers,
Derek.
--
Derek Featherstone <EMAIL REMOVED>
tel: 613-599-9784 1-866-932-4878 (toll-free in North America)
Web Development: http://www.furtherahead.com
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