Re: Javascript fallbacks for drop down menus

Hi David,
If I may interject - I strongly recommend that pull-down menus (scripted or 
CSS) are avoided at all costs. Partially sighted users with Zoom find that 
the menu fills the whole screen (and more). As they cursor down the list 
they do not know when they have reached the last item of the menu. As a 
result the focus goes below the menu box and leaves them in the middle of 
your page !!!!!

A second concern is that drop-down menus encourage designers to include too 
many links on a single page. As these usually occur in HTML before the 
content it makes it very hard for users of screen readers who have to wade 
through hundreds of irrelevant links to find something of interest. The 
place for lots of links is the site map (or section maps). Individual pages 
should only have the basic "top level" links and the submenu of links 
relevant to the page content.

If, however, a pull-down menu is required I suggest that you use a form 
<select> element which is much easier for users to control (and takes up 
less page space when is use.

Regards
Richard

-----Original Message----- 
From: Tina Holmboe
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:32 AM
To: David MacDonald
Cc: 'WCAG'
Subject: Re: Javascript fallbacks for drop down menus

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 05:12:51PM -0400, David MacDonald wrote:

> Wondering about other's opinions on fallbacks for inaccessible Javascript
> drop down menus, where the top of the menu is a normal link, but the
> dropdown items below them are not accessible. However, all the links in 
> the

I'd say that's the wrong way around. Make sure the menu, ie. the list of 
links,
is accessible, then apply the JS. The "old way", in other words.



> in WCAG ... But of course Longdesc provides an alternative for the image 
> on
> another page and in that respect is a precedent for providing a fallback 
> at

Now, I don't know the background for this discussion, but:

The longdesc attribute does not provide an *alternative* for the image, but
rather a verbose *description* of it - in a hyperlinked document.


-- 
Tina Holmboe            Greytower Technologies          www.greytower.net
  CEO                    Quality and Accessibility 
www.sitesifter.co.uk

  blog.greytower.net     www.twitter.com/GreytowerTech

Received on Thursday, 19 April 2012 11:24:38 UTC