WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Untill user agents WAS: looking for html techniquetoprovide a methodto skiprepetitive navigation linksi

for

From: ben morrison
Date: Oct 12, 2006 5:30AM

On 12/10/06, Patrick Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> > Egan, Bim
>
...
> >
> > On this basis I'd say that skip links should not only be
> > available, but also visible.
>
> But isn't the more sustainable and logical solution for user to use
> the tools/browsers that are most suitable for their particular needs
> (e.g. browsers like Opera with useful commands and keyboard shortcuts etc)
> and to learn how to use them properly? Where does user education
> come into play here? And is it part of the remit of organisations such
> as RNIB to help promote user education and make their customers and
> stakeholders aware of the tools that are available for them and how
> they can benefit from them? And possibly even put pressure on
> tool/browser developers to implement better functionality?
>
> Sorry, this sounds far more antagonistic than it's meant, but as
> Alastair pointed out, it's my hobby horse...


I tend to agree with you, but that little catch - 'untill user agents'
always nags me - purely because I tend to agree with the fact that we
should educate users, but untill the browsers/tools are ready we
should help users as much as possible.

We did trial 'readspeaker' on our site, but Im of the opinion that any
user who needs the site to be read out to them will in fact have
difficulty reaching the website anyway.

We also use viewing options - akin to the zoom layout principle. Here
again im not totally convinced of its usefullness, in hindsight
(whilst writing this) our 'viewing options' link is quite small on the
page, so once again a user who would benefit from this funcitonality
may not be able to see the link and also I wonder wether they would in
fact have difficulty finding the website without any browser/os
mods/tools.

Maybe what is needed instead is a usefull page/site full of resources,
tips, extensions etc? that we can all link too.

ben

--
Ben Morrison