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From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Thu, Feb 24 2005 12:44PM
Subject: MSIE keyboard navigation confusion
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I just discovered a really annoying Internet Explorer peculiarity:

Working on an A to Z index, I tried to navigate it with the keyboard.
The main navigation is a list of links linked to anchors with the name:

A
B
C
[...]

Each anchor is marked up as a headline followed by a list of links and a
paragraph with a link back to the navigation:
A

[...]

back to navigation
B

[...]

back to navigation
All of that is well and good, and valid HTML, and when I tab through the
navigation, and press enter it takes me to the appropriate section. Now,
the issue is that once there, the next tab should get me to the first
link of the list, or, if there is none, to the link back to the
navigation. In firefox that works, in Internet Explorer it doesn't.
Instead I get sent back to the navigation.
Example: http://icant.co.uk/articles/atoz/plainatoz.html (try with your
keyboard)
A remedy for that is to set an href attribute on the link inside the header:
B
In the example this is the "I" section.
This link is superfluous though, where can you make it point to? The
first link in the list of lists?
The other option would be to point the links in the main a to z
navigation to the first link of the list in that letter, however that
would scroll the letter off the screen for sighted users.
Did anyone come across this before, and is there a way around it? Is IE
being silly or am I missing something important?

cheers
Chris

From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Thu, Feb 24 2005 1:14PM
Subject: Re: MSIE keyboard navigation confusion
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Hi Chris,

> Now, the issue is that once there, the next tab should get me to the first

> link of the list, or, if there is none, to the link back to the
> navigation.

There is a discussion of this issue (IE bug), especially as it effects skip
navigation links at http://jimthatcher.com/skipnav.htm. The problem is
general for in-page links. And it has been remarkable how difficult it has
been to get across what it means for in-page link to "work" from the
keyboard (follow the link and tab again). Also the article I mentioned above
is not the whole story. What works and what doesn't may also to depend on
DOCTYPE and on presence of assistive technology - in addition to what is
discussed there.

Jim

Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
512-306-0931