RE: List Markup to Achieve Skip Repetitive Navigation Links Funct ionality

In the HTML techniques there is a suggestion for doing as you describe [1],
that is, to group links with list elements - that is our first preference of
mechanisms to group links. The current wording in the technique does not
talk about identifying the link group with the title attribute, but I recall
we had this in mind. However, we were uncertain about present-day user agent
support so weren't sure whether to mark this technique as a current
technique or one that would only be useful in the future. Michael
 
[1]
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS-20040629.html#linkgroup
s
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS-20040629.html#linkgrou
ps> 

-----Original Message-----
From: Fentress, Robert [mailto:rfentres@vt.edu]
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 5:31 PM
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: List Markup to Achieve Skip Repetitive Navigation Links
Functionality



Hello all!

 

I am new to the list, so I hope I don't embarrass myself straight out of the
chute, but I had a question about providing users with a means of skipping
repetitive navigation links.  In exploring the latest version of the JAWS
screen-reader, I discovered that using list markup for your navigation links
provides this same functionality, since there is robust ability to navigate
list structures, including the ability to completely skip them.  Just add a
title attribute to the <ul> or <ol> tag, describing what the list contains,
and the user can choose whether or not to skip it.  This being the case, is
it really necessary to put a skip navigation link at the start of listed
navigation?  Is this unacceptable, because not enough user agents provide
this functionality or has this just been overlooked?  I'll be honest; my
experience with screen readers is pretty much limited to JAWS.  Can anyone
else let me know if this would be a reliable technique?

 

Thanks,

Rob Fentress