I think what you're describing is commonly called Skip Links which
should be the first thing on the page and either skip to the main
content or at least to the main navigation. You can see this on
www.aol.com. You get dropped onto their search field when the page
loads. If you VO-Right a couple times to get past the Hot Searches
you'll find a set of links to pasue rotating content, go to an
accessible version, jump to featured stories etc. These links are not
visible on the page so only folks with screen readers would find them. I
talked to once of their a11y guys and I guess skip links are part of the
section 508 guidelines. He also told me that the skip links were
supposed to be right after the search box but then the Hot Searches were
added by another team, which is why you have to wade a bit. They also
did some user testing and found that skip links were annoying for some
users who would rather get a list of headers and jump between those.
Anyway, when I build sites I use CSS to hide extra stuff for screen
readers such as the state of trees being rolled up or unrolled and such.
The css just looks like this:
.hidden {
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
position: absolute;
overflow: hidden;
top: -999px;
}
So I make the box for the hidden text just 1 pixel in size, then move
the text to -999 pixels. End result is there is no visible text but Jaws
and VO can read it.
CB
Greg Kearney wrote:
I have been designing and programming the webpages of Curtin
University Centre for Accessible Technology (www.cucat.org) and it
doing so have collected a few thoughts about accessible web pages.
Along with as the usual things like alt tags and high contrast of
type. It occurred to me from my own use and that of my blind wife that
many pages require the screen reader, and sighted users as well, to
navigate through a whole range of site navigation links before ever
getting to the content of the site.
In the CUCAT site I have attempted to deal with this by placing the
navigation links at the bottom of the page so that when you land on a
page you reach that pages content. In the event of a very long page
where the navigation would be at the bottom I will have a single link
which will take the reader to the navigation links.
It would seem to me that this approach would be better for pages
intended to be read by screen readers, as well as by the sighted
rather than have all the visual and auditory distraction of complex
headers at the top of the page to navigate through before reaching the
true content of the page.
Also I feel the content of the page read in an uninterrupted flow
without breaking to offer other services or information.
As a general design rule I feel that webpages have become much to
complex and busy. This applies to the sighted as well as the blind.
Would you want a book in which the text flashed, moved or in some
other way animated the pages? Would you want a book in which bight
coloured text, unrelated to what you were reading littered the sides
of the main content area? The answer is, no, of course not but that is
often what we are getting from modern website design. There seems to
be of late the approach the because we can do something on a page we
should.
Just some thoughts to think about.
Greg Kearney
535 S. Jackson St.
Casper, Wyoming 82601
307-224-4022
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
