Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
I dont seem to get any of the flicking effects that everyone is talking about. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.8 William Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: Tee G. Peng wrote: teesworks.com/ Been working on this site in the last 2 days, I find that I am getting so annoyed by the surprise' everytime the hover pops up. If I, the site builder, find it annoying, what will the users find ? As a user I find that kind of visual flicker highly annoying. I am beginning to think this is causing a usability issue and is killing all other usable elements that I work so hard to try to get them right. A 'Skip to content' link may have its uses, but I don't see much need for one in that design - too few links to skip (at least in that dev page). Basic accessibility is too hard to sell anyway, and I don't see the point in annoying clients and/or the majority of users with such minor issues when there are so many other practical issues to take care of and spend dev-time on. Personally I don't provide skip to (whatever) links in a design unless there's a client-request for them, and then I style them without any flicker effects. regards Georg *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
on the topic of skip links and semantic styling, and to add to the mix of usability, accessibility and getting into the habit of best practice, Accessibility is not just for the impaired, it is also for people who access through different devices where CSS has not been styled to suite what is being looked at. I know that mobile isn't a big thing right now, however it is gaining pace and there are more internet enabled mobile devices than there are desktop computers. food for thought William Tee G. Peng wrote: On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:56 AM, Stuart Foulstone wrote: But the point is that, this accessibility feature is for people who can't use a mouse - i.e. they cannot click anywhere. Ah yah right A good point you have made. I am a 'mouse' user, and I do find skip to (content/navigation) useful for me. Now you pointed out ( John and other did too but I was blind :) ), makes me realized I was mainly viewing this feature from my own' benefit. Glad that I asked. Sometimes one has to show one's ignorance so one can learn something important :) tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
On Oct 30, 2007, at 5:56 AM, willdonovan wrote: I dont seem to get any of the flicking effects that everyone is talking about. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.8 Hi William, thanks for checking. It was eliminated :) This site has something similar to what I did - I think I must have gotten the idea from it ；） http://www.themaninblue.com/ tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
I agree with you: the 'hover' technique is way more annoying, and
it will annoy way more people.
Thanks all for your response. I now can clearly see I got myself
carried away by my 'try-to-do-thing-right' little obsession :)
Ok, three of you said skip to content is of little use in this site,
but if I still want to keep it (and able to keep client happy), I
suppose this won't upset users right?
#skip_nav a {display: block;padding: 0.35em;text-indent: -200em;text-
decoration: none;}
John said don't use display:block. Actually the very reason I used it
is because I want a user able to click on any area of the top. Is
this as bad as the annoying hover effect?
Georg, can you kindly take a look on IE6? The horizontal menu
doesn't load smoothly, when the page is fully loaded, the header's
part reloads, I suspect it has to do with the clear both class yet I
can't figure a fix for IE (tried all tricks from hasLayout)
div id=header
h1 id=logobackground image spanxxx/span/h1
div id=header_search/div
div class=clear !-- without clear:both the horizontal menu
moves up, sits below the search field --/div
div id=menu
liHome/li
lixxx/li
/ul
/div
div class=clear !-- the gray background won't show up without
clearing --/div
/div
#logo {float: left}
#header search {float:right}
#menu{background:#f3f3f3;width:100%;margin-top:0}
.clear {height:0;clear:both}
IEs show a 6px to 8px gap between h1 logo and the menu., so I have
margin-top: -6px for IEs. my guess is the clear class causing it.
It works except that in IE 6, as described, the header reloads after
the page fully loaded.
Thanks!
tee
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Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Hi! Tee G. Peng skrev: Thanks to your influences, it has become my second nature to have 'skip to content' I use to do it the other way around, having the content first in source and using a link to get to the navigation. And then I simply put a link to the menu, not anything about skipping (all normal links tells you where they go, not where they don't go). Example: http://treemenu.nornix.com/ It's the first link on the page. Could be styled more like a heading or something. In this case there's also a little bit JavaScript magic in the link ... /andersN *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
But the point is that, this accessibility feature is for people who can't use a mouse - i.e. they cannot click anywhere. On Sun, October 28, 2007 6:46 am, Tee G. Peng wrote: John said don't use display:block. Actually the very reason I used it is because I want a user able to click on any area of the top. Is this as bad as the annoying hover effect? *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
On Oct 28, 2007, at 3:56 AM, Stuart Foulstone wrote: But the point is that, this accessibility feature is for people who can't use a mouse - i.e. they cannot click anywhere. Ah yah right A good point you have made. I am a 'mouse' user, and I do find skip to (content/navigation) useful for me. Now you pointed out ( John and other did too but I was blind :) ), makes me realized I was mainly viewing this feature from my own' benefit. Glad that I asked. Sometimes one has to show one's ignorance so one can learn something important :) tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Stuart Foulstone wrote: But the point is that, this accessibility feature is for people who can't use a mouse - i.e. they cannot click anywhere. In general parlance, click has become the general term for activate. Keyboard users won't walk away offended by the use of that term (just the same way that, for instance, a blind colleague I used to work with generally used the phrase see you later). P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ __ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Philippe Wittenbergh wrote: A compromise solution I have used: when a client doesn't want them, hide them (position them of screen, not display:none), but make them visible when those links are focussed (by pressing the tab key). Yup, I've used that approach on www.salford.ac.uk and it works reasonably well. P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ __ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Most disabled users, particularly sight impaired, will use your header markup to navigate the page rather than skip links Really? How will they do that? And what makes you believe that this is the case? ...an accessible browser like Firefox which allows them to display a header list... No it doesn't. There is probably an extension that does this, but in my experience Firefox is used even less commonly by people with disabilities than it is by fully able users. I suspect that more people use keyboard navigation or keyboard equivalents than use screen readers, and a 'skip to contents' link is helpful for them. Even if they are using a user agent that uses headers for navigation, a 'skip to content' link saves several clicks, which is important for people with limited mobility. Steve Hi Tee, I appreciate your desire to provide navigational accessibility for disabled users however Skip to content is not the best way to do it. Most disabled users, particularly sight impaired, will use your header markup to navigate the page rather than skip links. Most often the audience who need the skip nav functionality will be using an accessible browser like Firefox which allows them to display a header list whereby they can easily surf through a properly structured page which makes use of header tags. You've done a fairly good job on the teesworks page using header tags so the skip to content link is not going to serve much purpose. Also keep in mind that display:none and visibility:hidden remove content from screen readers. A screen reader will not pick up elements styled like that so unless that's your purpose, don't use those kinds of rules in your CSS for markup you intend for a screen reader. Nice page btw. -Tim -- Tim Offenstein *** Campus Accessibility Liaison *** (217) 244-2700 CITES Departmental Services *** www.uiuc.edu/goto/offenstein *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
On Sun, October 28, 2007 6:38 pm, Patrick H. Lauke wrote: Stuart Foulstone wrote: But the point is that, this accessibility feature is for people who can't use a mouse - i.e. they cannot click anywhere. In general parlance, click has become the general term for activate. Keyboard users won't walk away offended by the use of that term (just the same way that, for instance, a blind colleague I used to work with generally used the phrase see you later). P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ That may well be true, but irrelevant to this discussion. Tee was enlarging the clickable area of a skip to content link with the intention of making it easier to use. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Georg, thank you so much! IE6 displayed correctly except the header problem I wrote. I did a lot of tweaking in the main stylesheet after my post , and didn't get to check on IE6. You saw the 'wrong version' :), but I notice the header's reloads disappered now the right column sits below the left. this makes me rethink maybe the mini-cart that has negative margin top causing (I ruled this out before), or the auto-expansion. Thanks for the advice on hasLayout tricks. I will give it more thought next time I tempt to use again. A fixed-width approach will _just work_ in all browsers, and make it much easier to get IE6 to behave like a browser. I need to accommodate 800px screen for a very specific reason, but this layout doesn't look good (especially in product page) in 800px. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Stuart Foulstone wrote: That may well be true, but irrelevant to this discussion. Tee was enlarging the clickable area of a skip to content link with the intention of making it easier to use. oops, right you are. must stop reading emails out of context and jumping at things. apologies, P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ __ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
I am having an issue and I can't seem to see the whole picture objectively. Thanks to your influences, it has become my second nature to have 'skip to content' in every site I do (sites I have control over the design and layout); when I do markup coding, clients often ignore the 'skip to content' and 'skip to nav' - I managed to convinced them a couple times with a compromise to hide it from browsers by using 'display:none', because, according to them, only screen users need 'skip to content'. I am doing a site that I have control on design and layout, client asked to remove the 'skip to content' when I showed him the first layout, I tried to talk him out by stating how important it is to have the 'skip to content' implemented. He didn't buy it, so I came out with this technique: teesworks.com/ (move your mouse to the top to see the result). Haven't show it to client yet. Been working on this site in the last 2 days, I find that I am getting so annoyed by the surprise' everytime the hover pops up. There is no way to miss it everytime I move the cursor to the top. If I, the site builder, find it annoying, what will the users find ? I am beginning to think this is causing a usability issue and is killing all other usable elements that I work so hard to try to get them right. Please give me your thought. Many thanks! tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
On Oct 28, 2007, at 11:44 AM, Tee G. Peng wrote:
... so I came out with this technique:
teesworks.com/ (move your mouse to the top to see the result).
Haven't show it to client yet. Been working on this site in the
last 2 days, I find that I am getting so annoyed by the surprise'
everytime the hover pops up. There is no way to miss it everytime I
move the cursor to the top.
I agree with you: the 'hover' technique is way more annoying, and it
will annoy way more people.
'skip links' should be visible all the time, as they are useful for
sighted users (e.g using the keyboard).
A compromise solution I have used: when a client doesn't want them,
hide them (position them of screen, not display:none), but make them
visible when those links are focussed (by pressing the tab key).
a.skiplinks {position:absolute; left: -999em;}
a.skiplinks:focus,
a.skiplinks:active {left: 1em;}
:active state is for iExploder. Add additional styling to taste.
Not really perfect, just a compromise.
Philippe
---
Philippe Wittenbergh
http://emps.l-c-n.com
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Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Been working on this site in the last 2 days, I find that I am getting so annoyed by the surprise' everytime the hover pops up. There is no way to miss it everytime I move the cursor to the top. Leaving aside considerations as to whether you should actually be bothering after the client has explicity requested it not be implemented, if you're looking for a more unobtrusive option, don't make the link display: block, just let the link text area be clickable. After all, with this method, you're not really expecting any mouse user to find it, so increasing the clickable area is a bit pointless. Also, don't change the background-color; just make the link text appear. -- Tyssen Design www.tyssendesign.com.au Ph: (07) 3300 3303 Mb: 0405 678 590 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
At 7:44 PM -0700 10/27/07, Tee G. Peng wrote: I am having an issue and I can't seem to see the whole picture objectively. Thanks to your influences, it has become my second nature to have 'skip to content' in every site I do (sites I have control over the design and layout); when I do markup coding, clients often ignore the 'skip to content' and 'skip to nav' - I managed to convinced them a couple times with a compromise to hide it from browsers by using 'display:none', because, according to them, only screen users need 'skip to content'. I am doing a site that I have control on design and layout, client asked to remove the 'skip to content' when I showed him the first layout, I tried to talk him out by stating how important it is to have the 'skip to content' implemented. He didn't buy it, so I came out with this technique: teesworks.com/ (move your mouse to the top to see the result). Hi Tee, I appreciate your desire to provide navigational accessibility for disabled users however Skip to content is not the best way to do it. Most disabled users, particularly sight impaired, will use your header markup to navigate the page rather than skip links. Most often the audience who need the skip nav functionality will be using an accessible browser like Firefox which allows them to display a header list whereby they can easily surf through a properly structured page which makes use of header tags. You've done a fairly good job on the teesworks page using header tags so the skip to content link is not going to serve much purpose. Also keep in mind that display:none and visibility:hidden remove content from screen readers. A screen reader will not pick up elements styled like that so unless that's your purpose, don't use those kinds of rules in your CSS for markup you intend for a screen reader. Nice page btw. -Tim -- Tim Offenstein *** Campus Accessibility Liaison *** (217) 244-2700 CITES Departmental Services *** www.uiuc.edu/goto/offenstein *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] skip to content: care of accessibility causing usability
Tee G. Peng wrote: teesworks.com/ Been working on this site in the last 2 days, I find that I am getting so annoyed by the surprise' everytime the hover pops up. If I, the site builder, find it annoying, what will the users find ? As a user I find that kind of visual flicker highly annoying. I am beginning to think this is causing a usability issue and is killing all other usable elements that I work so hard to try to get them right. A 'Skip to content' link may have its uses, but I don't see much need for one in that design - too few links to skip (at least in that dev page). Basic accessibility is too hard to sell anyway, and I don't see the point in annoying clients and/or the majority of users with such minor issues when there are so many other practical issues to take care of and spend dev-time on. Personally I don't provide skip to (whatever) links in a design unless there's a client-request for them, and then I style them without any flicker effects. regards Georg -- http://www.gunlaug.no *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
