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Thread: Drop-down menus
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Joe Clark
Date: Fri, Aug 01 2003 6:22AM
Subject: Drop-down menus
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>> I was wondering if it's possible to make drop down menus for
>>navigation that are accessible?
>
>Depends on what you mean by accessibility, but the practical answer
>is "no, and there's no need to". Dropdown menus for navigation are a
>bad idea.
Drop-down menus created by styling unordered lists are a perfectly
accessible and standards-compliant method. And that's not the only
method, either.
Jukka is great at sweeping condemnations, and they're always amusing
to read, but he's out of date on this one.
<http://www.google.com/search?q=css+unordered+list+menus>;
<http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22css+menus%22>;
<http://www.alistapart.com/stories/taminglists/>;
--
Joe Clark | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>;
Author, _Building Accessible Websites_
<http://joeclark.org/book/>;
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From: John Britsios
Date: Fri, Aug 01 2003 6:30AM
Subject: Re: Drop-down menus
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It would be suggested using select lists instead!
That is definetely accessible and besides usable.
John Britsios
Web Accessibility and Usability Consultant
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Clark" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 2:18 PM
Subject: Drop-down menus
> >> I was wondering if it's possible to make drop down menus for
> >>navigation that are accessible?
> >
> >Depends on what you mean by accessibility, but the practical answer
> >is "no, and there's no need to". Dropdown menus for navigation are a
> >bad idea.
>
> Drop-down menus created by styling unordered lists are a perfectly
> accessible and standards-compliant method. And that's not the only
> method, either.
>
> Jukka is great at sweeping condemnations, and they're always amusing
> to read, but he's out of date on this one.
>
> <http://www.google.com/search?q=css+unordered+list+menus>;
> <http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22css+menus%22>;
> <http://www.alistapart.com/stories/taminglists/>;
> --
>
> Joe Clark | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>;
> Author, _Building Accessible Websites_
> <http://joeclark.org/book/>;
>
>
> ----
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> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Fri, Aug 01 2003 7:10AM
Subject: Re: Drop-down menus
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Joe,
I looked at the examples you cited, but none of them talked about pull down
or dynamic lists. They talked about styling standard lists with CSS to
create graphical effects, but there was no mention of a mouse hover making
a sub menu appear. Did I miss something?
Thanks,
Jon
At 08:18 AM 8/1/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>>> I was wondering if it's possible to make drop down menus for
>>> navigation that are accessible?
>>
>>Depends on what you mean by accessibility, but the practical answer is
>>"no, and there's no need to". Dropdown menus for navigation are a bad idea.
>
>Drop-down menus created by styling unordered lists are a perfectly
>accessible and standards-compliant method. And that's not the only method,
>either.
>
>Jukka is great at sweeping condemnations, and they're always amusing to
>read, but he's out of date on this one.
>
><http://www.google.com/search?q=css+unordered+list+menus>;
><http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22css+menus%22>;
><http://www.alistapart.com/stories/taminglists/>;
>--
>
> Joe Clark | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>;
> Author, _Building Accessible Websites_
> <http://joeclark.org/book/>;
>
>
>----
>To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives, visit
>http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820
Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248
E-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Fri, Aug 01 2003 8:34AM
Subject: Re: Drop-down menus
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On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Joe Clark wrote:
> Drop-down menus created by styling unordered lists are a perfectly
> accessible and standards-compliant method.
There's no such thing as perfectly accessible, and you know it, Joe.
Without examples that show (1) how you understood the question and
(2) what you propose as an answer, it is impossible to say exactly
how you are wrong.
> <http://www.google.com/search?q=css+unordered+list+menus>;
> <http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22css+menus%22>;
Are you serious?
> <http://www.alistapart.com/stories/taminglists/>;
Where's the beef? I don't see any dropdown list.
I'm not going to present an example that would show what you probably had
in your mind. It might be something that has tolerable implications on
accessibility. But if you call it perfectly accessible, then you're
thinking in terms of some finite set of technical requirements and
probably oriented towards (purportedly) avoiding to cause problems to
blind people.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Fri, Aug 01 2003 7:29PM
Subject: Re: Drop-down menus
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On Friday, August 1, 2003, at 05:18 AM, Joe Clark wrote:
>> (Jukka) Depends on what you mean by accessibility, but the practical
>> answer is "no, and there's no need to". Dropdown menus for navigation
>> are a bad idea.
>
> Drop-down menus created by styling unordered lists are a perfectly
> accessible and standards-compliant method. And that's not the only
> method, either.
A better question is whether or not they're a good idea. In a few
cases, they probably are. In most cases in which they're used, they're
not so good.
It's the same case as with frames. Frames aren't inherently evil, and
they CAN be made accessible, but the way in which most developers jump
on the bandwagon in a developer-centric attempt to solve developer
problems (at the expense of the overall usability) gives them a bad
rap. But not an undeserved one.
The same applies to drop-down menus. By and large, they're abused
rather than used, even if you can make them accessible (which you
can). Few people actually seem to use drop-down menus in a
responsible manner that benefits the user. Usually the impetus to
resort to a drop-down menu indicates some sort of OTHER problem,
either with layout/screen real estate, or with link organization
(and possibly site organization). Drop-down menus in such case
are often just a band-aid over larger problems, in the same way
that frames attempt to solve problems such as "I want to have all
these links on every page" (better solved by getting a better
authoring system than by using frames, EVEN if those frames will
be accessible).
> Jukka is great at sweeping condemnations, and they're always amusing
> to read, but he's out of date on this one.
Mmm, I disagree. (And yes, I've read about the lists + CSS stuff.)
--Kynn
--
Kynn Bartlett < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com
Shock & Awe Blog http://shock-awe.info
Author, CSS in 24 Hours http://cssin24hours.com
Inland Anti-Empire Blog http://inlandantiempire.org
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