RE: Best practice

Dear Lynn,

Take a look at the page with Len's Wave tool.

You will notice a couple things right away:

(1)  The ALT content needs to be beefed up a little.  Text browsers are
never, for example, provided the information that they are on a "Jame Cook
University" site!

(2)  The default reading order is messed up.  The left hand title bar
(inside a table) is okay, but you will need to mindful of how it
linearlizes.  My impression is that this is a navigation bar and, since
their is already a navigation bar at the top, this one belongs at the bottom
of the page.  In any case, the main body content "strategic plan for..."
needs have a stronger attachment to its heading "Strategic Plans".  To a
screen reader, the page currently read like "Strategic Plan" is the header
for the left hand menu bar!

Currently, you have something like:

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD> </TD>
<TH> [Main body heading] </TH>
<TD> [Left hand menu bar] </TD>
<TD> [Main body of text here] </TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

Which, to a screen reader or text browser, reads in the same order as it is
written in the HTML code.  Keeping the visual presentation the same, and
having the menu read last (the trickier choice in this case), the above
should be coded as:

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD> </TD>
<TD ROWSPAN=2> <TABLE> <TR> <TH> [Main body heading] </TH>
<TD> [Main body of text here] </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </TD>
</TR>
<TD> [Left hand menu bar] </TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

If you don't like the nested tables, you can do with out them (but you loose
the ability to identify header cells):

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD> </TD>
<TD ROWSPAN=2> [Main body heading] <BR>
[Main body of text here] </TD>
</TR>
<TD> [Left hand menu bar] </TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>


> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Lynn Alford
> Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 12:20 AM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Best practice
>
>
> Here at James Cook University, we are redeveloping our web site (isn't
> everyone?)  The design preferred includes left-side navigation links.
>
> So my question for the group is what is the best way to implement such
> links?  Have you found a particularly accessible site?  Should we
> implement
> in style sheets or as tables (I prefer style sheets, the info
> tech guys are
> arguing that doesn't cater for older browser.
>
> I'm playing around with this as an idea
>
> http://www.tld.jcu.edu.au/develop/jcuproto/asd_lynn/asdplan.html
> (only page
> redone with style sheets so far)
>
> Others think it should be more like http://www.jcu.edu.au/newsite/asd/
> URL of accessible left-hand navigation sites are welcome.
>
> Lynn

Received on Thursday, 13 April 2000 10:50:22 UTC