Re: 4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation - use of right angle brackets

Hi Steve,

I think both of these examples work well. Since most existing breadcrumb
markup won't include the "You are here" start text, the recommendation of
using aria-live makes sense to me.

It may additionally make sense to add a note to encourage people not to use
breadcrumbs as their primary <nav> markup, since they just reflect where in
the navigation the user currently finds themself.

Cheers,
Silvia.

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 7:48 PM, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Silvia,
>
> >> I found no indication of accessibility users complaining about
> breadcrumbs.
> > Do you have any indications of such problems?
>
> right thats why I was asking :-)
>
> Upon looking into the issue further what I did find was that providing
>  a label providing context is accessible best practice [1]
>
>
> Suggest the current advice/examples be augmented to include a text cue
> such as "You are here" at the start of the trail.
>
>
> <nav>
>  <p> You are here:
> <a href="/">Main</a> >
> <a href="/products/">Products</a> >
> <a href="/products/dishwashers/">Dishwashers</a> >
> <a>Second hand</a>
> </p>
> </nav>
>
>
> This may be visible (example [2]) or hidden offscreen but available to
> screen reader user (example:[1]) it could also be added using an
> aria-label attribute on the nav element.
>
> <nav aria-label="You are here">
>  <p>
> <a href="/">Main</a> >
> <a href="/products/">Products</a> >
> <a href="/products/dishwashers/">Dishwashers</a> >
> <a>Second hand</a>
> </p>
> </nav>
>
> regards
> SteveF
>
>
> [1] http://webaim.org/articles/siteredesign/#decisions
> [2]  http://juicystudio.com/services.php
>
>
>
> On 26 January 2013 22:26, Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The greater sign is a typical breadcrumb sign used on many sites as a
> > hierarchy indicator, see also
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadcrumb_%28navigation%29 . Having it
> > announced as "greater" seems appropriate. I found other examples here:
> >
> http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/breadcrumb-navigation-examined-best-practices-examples/
> > . Most of the time something arrow-like is being used.
> >
> > I found no indication of accessibility users complaining about
> breadcrumbs.
> > Do you have any indications of such problems? What alternative symbol
> would
> > you suggest?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Silvia.
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 4:00 AM, Steve Faulkner <
> faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Section 4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation (under Common idioms without
> >> dedicated elements [1])
> >>
> >>  encourages the use of the right angle bracket to indicate a
> >> breadcrumb navigation trail:
> >>
> >> <p>
> >>   <a href="/">Main</a> >
> >>   <a href="/products/">Products</a> >
> >>   <a href="/products/dishwashers/">Dishwashers</a> >
> >>   <a>Second hand</a>
> >>  </p>
> >>
> >> The use of > in this context does not appear to be a good practice to
> >> promote as the angle bracket is a symbol that depending on user agent
> >> (AT in this case) is typically announced as "greater" or not announced
> >> in this context. Either way it is not clearly convyed that its a
> >> breadcrumb trail.
> >>
> >>
> >>  It may be that this is not an issue for users who consume the angle
> >> brackets in this context and the pattern of its use conveys that it is
> >> a breadcrumb trail. If it is a problem I suggest that this example
> >> would need to be revisited to see if we can come up with something
> >> that is more useful to a wider range of users.
> >>
> >> [1]
> >>
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/common-idioms.html#common-idioms
> >>
> >> --
> >> with regards
> >>
> >> Steve Faulkner
> >>
> >
>