Re: WCAG Curriculum: A navigation question.

Hi Alan...

Your  comments had me confused until I deduced that you must be using LYNX
to look at the slides.  The Slidemaker tool I use automatically generates
some metadata in the HEAD of the HTML.  On Checkpoint slide 2-0 for
instance, Slidemaker generates:
<HEAD>
	<link rel="prev" href="chk1-0.htm">
	<link rel="contents" href="overchk.htm">
	<link rel="next" href="chk3-0.htm">
</HEAD>

As far as I know, LYNX is the only browser that actually exposes the LINK
REL elements to the user. 

So, for LYNX users, a "second" set of navigation aids would indeed seem
redundant.  However, for the users of almost every other browser, the HEAD
metadata is not exposed and the following rationales would kick in.

1. If you bookmarked slide 45 of 78 and came back to it in another session,
you could not "Go Back" to the ToC.

2. If you started at the TOC, selected Slide 1 of 78, advanced slide by
slide to slide 45 of 78, you would have to hit Go Back 46 times to reach
the ToC.  If your browser supported a pull-down recent-history list, you
might be able to find the ToC more quickly but the list might not support
that many past links.  That is still a lot of keyboarding if a quick link
to the ToC was unavailable.

Do you think it would be reasonable then, given that I do provide prev/next
links on every slide, to remove the LINK REL statement in the HEAD so they
don't confuse LYNX users?

Regards,
Chuck

At 24/04/99 01:17 AM , you wrote:
>Personally, I found the TOC button on each page unnecessary/redundant. To
>return to the TOC, one clicks the browser's back button, or presses the
>keyboard shortcut (left arrow in Lynx; Alt + left arrow in IE or NN; Ctrl
>+ left arrow in Opera). 
>
>In fact, it is easier (for me, anyway) to use the keyboard technique than
>to hunt around for the TOC button. But never mind, I am surely in the
>minority on this issue. 
>
>I found your navigation scheme quite usable.  (Although I wondered why it
>was necessary to include two "previous slide" links and two "next slide"
>links per slide...)
>

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Received on Saturday, 24 April 1999 10:16:06 UTC