Re: XML and accessibility

Hi, Charles

I believe the analysis is incomplete.  Is the issue to skip over links
in the navigation bar or is the issue to get to the most important
information on the page?  Why do users want to jump over navigation
bars?  Also, why would people with upper arm limitations need to jump
over navigation bar links?  Is the issue then that there needs to be mechanisms
to help people who tab sequentially through links to be more efficient?

Scott



> Navbars are an interesting case in point.
> 
> There are a number of users who would be better served by being able to skip
> over, rather than have to work their way through, a navigation bar. These
> include people who have cognitive diabilities and people with motor
> disabilites as well as blind users. On the other hand, access to the
> navigation is of course as important to these users as to everyone else.
> 
> I think Nir is much closer to the mark - what is needed is some markup to
> identify a navbar. Actually, however, there is such markup in HTML 4 - the
> map element. Until we all have good browsers, however, it is helpful to
> provide a way of skiiping past this. Accesskey is one strategy that is
> provided by HTML but only implemented in some browsers. Another is to provide
> a link to "skip navbar" which goes directly past them.
> 
> Charles McCN

Received on Sunday, 23 January 2000 00:29:41 UTC