RE: DHTML menus and accessibility

> From:	Joe Clark [SMTP:joeclark@electricseed.com]
> 
> * Do current screen readers even recognize when a DHTML menu drops down?
> 
[DJW:]  What's a DHTML menu?  There is no such element in
HTML!

One problem with such attempts to simulate Windows
behaviour is that there are no standards for doing it;
it certainly doesn't represent proper structural 
markup.

I think this question would only make sense in the 
context of one particular way of doing them, or in 
terms of the HTML generated by one particular version
of one named authoring tool.

If I remember correctly, script alternatives are
a priority 1 requirement in the WAI guidelines, so
any site with any pretensions to accessibility will
work with "DHTML" disabled, and I would think it
best for anyone with screen readers (as well as those
concerned about security) to disable it.

In my experience, sites that are heavily into Javascript
are going to a problem for anybody to navigate; this 
isn't fundamentally true, but the people who design
navigable sites tend not to feel the need for heavy
scripting.
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Received on Tuesday, 15 August 2000 12:57:12 UTC