on 03/11/2006 10:50 Rahul Gonsalves said the following: <snip>
http://www.usability.com.au/resources/ozewai2005/
I wonder whether any of the conclusions that were drawn in the study, are still valid, or whether there has been further research to either supplement or contradict it? Specifically, one observation, "The majority of screen reader users EXPECT navigation to be presented before the content." [1], and the subsequent statement " Our research showed no clear overall PREFERENCE of source order" [2], seem to lead me to believe that there is no real reason to attempt to have layouts with the source order first.
<snip>
I'd be interested to hearing from people with actual experience, and or research, since all my conclusions are arrived at second-hand.
I also did a very small study on page order with some experienced pan-disability users/testers from the Shaw Trust (www..shaw-trust.org.uk) about a year ago.
The feedback that I received confirmed the findings above. Users expected site navigation to be presented before content. Overall, the testers felt that placing content before navigation didn't offer any real benefits - especially as it was contrary to their expectations and previous experience. So it would seem that, once a 'trend' is well established, going against it (even for the best of reasons) can create its own issues. Users, generally, don't like being suprised or being made to think as they try to move around a site or page.
In a separate, earlier, piece of research, I came across screen reader users who preferred to access content before navigation and achieved this by simply jumping to the bottom of the page and working "upwards" as standard. So it would seem that screen reader users are perfectly capable of developing their own individual strategies to maximise the chances of page content being rendered in the order that they prefer. But, again, this kind of strategy is based upon the expectation that content will be placed after navigation. If you design contrary to that expectation, the end result may be disorientations and/or frustration for this sub-group.
In the past 12 months, I've not come across any newer studies that would suggest anything has changed.
Hope that helps. Mel ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
