Steve Green wrote:
The use of hidden headings for navigation is of benefit to anyone whose user agent does not support CSS, not just screen reader users. We are seeing an increasing number of sites built that way and there isn't a downside that I can think of so perhaps it should become standard practice.
That's pretty enlightening.
Screen readers do not read 'title' attributes by default. You can configure some to read 'title' attributes instead of the on-page text but no one is going to have that as a permanent setting. You can also read the 'title' attribute for a specific element but that presupposes the user knows which elements have 'title' attributes.
That's definitely worth knowing. You're priceless for this info, Steve!
Tooltips of any kind can be a nuisance for screen magnifier users because even a small one can obscure a large proportion of the screen at modest magnification levels. It is even worse when the tooltip is caused by the 'title' attribute for a structural element such as a paragraph or a div because the user does not know where to move the mouse to get rid of it. It may not even be possible if the element fills the entire screen. For this reason I would not recommend using a 'title' attribute for a list.
I think, because of the neatness and fun code around tooltips, especially CSS-generated ones, these things have acquired a popularity that isn't at all sober. My advice to people is: Is that information really desired, and if so, why not in the document's inactive state?
Of course, I've seen 'pop-up' info via hidden/visible objects used tastefully, but a lot of the time I agree with Steve - it is an irritant.
In particular, the new Google Image search - flashy effect, but utterly useless. Why is it so much better to see nothing but pictures? Why do I have to hover over each of them to get that information that I find particularly useful in determining the image's use? For one-off elaborations these are great (SNAP previews), but when it's a regular feature in your UI, it is just a pain. It also makes what would be pleasant, productive skimming a slow, challenging and clunky process. That's my opinionated usability tip for the day.
Regards, Barney ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
