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RE: skip-nav tabindex setfocus etc.RE: [WebAIM] skip-navtabindex setfocus etc.

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Mar 15, 2006 6:10AM

Hi,

My limited observations are that people, who use a keyboard or devices
simulating keyboard input to navigate the user interface, tend to tab
quickly to their goal and don't seem to notice a link that seems to
appear for a split second. It seems as though the user is focusing on a
specific link or form control. The user knows it is X number of tabs to
that link or form control--although they might not know the exact
number, just that it's a lot of tabbing.

I am uncertain exactly how to explain it.

Its not like:

Tab, "oh, there is a skip link I can use."

Its more like:

Tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab..."gee, something
funny happened after the first tab." Then they may either tab merrily
on their way to their original goal or start tabbing back to the skip
link to check it out.

I am also not certain if skip links are as useful to someone using a
screen reader or screen magnifier as they are to other people using the
keyboard or devices simulating keyboard input. In the case of people
using a screen reader, my thought is that good semantic markup may be
more important. In the case of people using screen magnification, those
people I am familiar with seem to use the mouse more. They might use
the tab key once they are in a form or maybe even navigating the
browser's menubar. However, it seems they tend to use the mouse more
when just looking around a page or trying to find a specific link in a
page full of links.

Of course, this is all based on my personal observations, so I am
uncertain if it indicates approaches most people utilize or just those I
happened to observe.

Tim