RE: visibility of 'skip links'

Mike wrote:
>(Personally, I happen to feel that this requirement makes more sense as a
>user agent feature rather than for individual web pages, but I guess that
>discussion will have to wait for the next revision of the standards...)

I agree that the browser does have the requirement (some have the
capability now) to skip over a chunk of links. And I agree this should be a
discussion for the next revision of the standards, both 508 and WCAG.

But, the requirement is to be able to jump to the main content *easily*
when there are navigation links in the way.  I believe there are really two
requirements, skipping over a large set of links to avoid having to press
TAB too often, but for the low vision, blind, and small screen user to
*easily* get to (identify) the main content is another requirement.
Putting the main content first followed by the navigation links is one
solution.  Coding the main content with the only H1 could also be another
solution.  Having a "skip to main content" is another solution that meets
both requirements when the navigation links are first on the page.

Note: I did not cross-post this reply to the 508 list since it originated
on the w3c-wai-ig list.

Regards,
Phill Jenkins,
IBM Research Division - Accessibility Center
http://www.ibm.com/able

Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 18:19:27 UTC