Re: A different approach for web page accessibility

Some background for people interested in this technique:

Checkpoint 13.6 as found in 
  
  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

  http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-facilitate-navigation

is intended to address the same need that this technique addresses.  We
need to flesh out the techniques in this area, both in terms of HTML
techniques such as the internal bypass link found at <http://www.acb.org>
and user-agent techniques such as skip-block.

Scott, can you write the script so that it edits the page, such that if the
script doesn't run one leaves in place an HTML fragment containing an
explicit skip-link and if the script does run one replaces this with an
active widget offering a minimized navbar?

Al

At 07:03 PM 3/27/99 -0800, Scott Luebking wrote:
>Hi,
>A complaint that I've heard from various blind web page users is that
>they often have to read through all sorts of navigation links before
>they can get to the "meat" of the page.  This means that they can
>be less efficient than their sighted counter-parts.  (Since
>I'm of the school of thought that accessibility must include
>efficiency, I believe that this is an important aspect to consider
>for web page accessibility.)
>
>Dynamic HTML is becoming more popular for web pages.  I figured it might be
>interesting to use dynamic HTML to improve the efficiency of blind
>people navigating through a web page.  By incorporating features
>of dynamic HTML, I re-wrote one of BART's web pages so that the navigation
>bars are invisible.  This means that there are much fewer links to read
through.
>Two links are provided to show the navigation bar.  One shows a graphic
>version while the other shows a text-only version.  If you would like
>to take a look at this version of the web page, the URL is:
>
>  http://members.aol.com/criptrip/alt_bart_page.html
>
>There are some interesting benefits to the approach.  The page becomes
much simpler
>to read for blind people and people with certain types of learning
>disabilities.  More screen real estate is freed up.  The pages are easier
>to write since less effort is needed to find visually pleasing ways
>to include links.  The pages can look less clutered.
>
>There might be some problems to this approach.  Some screenreaders
>are not up to handling dynamic HTML.  Some non-disabled may not want
>to do an extra mouse click to see the navigation bar.  Lynx users may have
>a problem with dynamic HTML.
>
>Let me know what you think.
>
>Scott
>

Received on Sunday, 28 March 1999 10:02:40 UTC