Re: Tab Order for Anchors

> Right - if you have done something very wierd with the link presentation 
> so they don't appear in a sensible order it is helpful to have a 
> tabindex. Otherwise I would say it is not necessary. In any event I 
> sggest it is better to avoid having a wierd ordering in HTML since 
> control of positioning is not always reliable.

I have to confess that my reason for the use of tabindex is more for 
compliance than usability; when I create documents, I do a lot of 
testing with Lynx (saves cluttering my screen up with top-heavy user 
agents), so I have already made sure that the order in which links 
appear is logical.  If links needed to come in anything but their 
natural order, I would regard my document structure as flawed as would 
re-work it.

As long as compliance does not actually detract from usability, I try to 
stick as close as possible to the letter of the law since, to most 
clients, this is something which can be tested easily with an online 
service.  I would rather the client see a message "this complies" rather 
than having to explain the reasoning behind deliberate non-compliance.

Since 99% of my material is produced by Perl programmes, inserting tab 
indices is no great hardship, since I just call a subroutine which keeps 
a track on the values.

Thanks to all who answered my initial question regarding the need (or 
lack of) for tabindex values in document anchors used as targets for 
internal links.

Cheers

M


-- 
Matthew Smith
IT Consultant - KBC, South Australia
KBC Web Site    http://www.kbc.net.au
PGP Public Key  http://gpg.mss.cx

Received on Monday, 5 May 2003 06:31:34 UTC