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Re: Accessible Drop Down menus using Form tag

for

From: Spruill Kevin
Date: Nov 29, 2006 2:00PM


Gary,

The Demo explanations, unfortunately are not very clear - however at the
bottom of this page http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2005/Demo/features
They discuss the problems with the page template. The essential reason
for the drop down being inaccessible is it's use of the onchange
event... Their specific citation is:

5.11.2. Keyboard Shortcuts
The following WCAG 1.0 checkpoint relates to keyboard shortcuts:

Checkpoint 9.5 Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including
those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form
controls. [Priority 3]

A clearer explanation (in my opinion, and one I've used in the past) is
related to some of the comments you've received re: keyboard control and
access, specifically lack thereof


Kevin Spruill
IT Specialist
Information Resources Accessibility Program
OS:CIO:ES:BI:CS:IRAP:IT
Phone: (202) 283-7059
IRAP Web site: http://irap.web.irs.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Williamson [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 5:32 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Accessible Drop Down menus using Form tag

I'm looking for clarification about making drop down menus accessible.
W3C recently produced an exemplar accessibility site at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2005/Demo/after/

Which uses a drop-down menu, created with a Form tag with a Go button
but I can't find any reference to why this is considered 'good practice'
in their evaluation. Does anyone know why this method is considered the
best, apart from that it doesn't use JavaScript?

Thanks

Gary