Re: Why Skip Navigation Links are a Hack

On 14 Jun, David Woolley wrote:

>>      (2) Situations where the content is preceeded by a preamble of some
>>          length, typical of - for instance - some legal documents. Being
> 
> A legal pre-amble is almost certain a case where a skip mechanism is
> unacceptable.  The reason that document structures are distorted to 
> put legal notices at the beginning is so that the reader cannot argue that

  Is there any particular reason why someone never read the same
  document twice ? You wouldn't, I hope, argue that a random person X
  would never go back to reading a document and might actually, on the
  second, third, and umpteenth reading, want to skip the same pre-amble
  ?

  Honestly, I can only see good things coming from a properly
  implemented link for going directly to the (main) content of a
  document.

  A screenreader, braille browser, and speech synthesizer can skip to a
  relevant section. I can jump by the navigation with Lynx or on my
  Palm. A 'normal' user can go directly where he or she wants to be. No
  need to replace the browser to do so either - the fact remains
  that it is just a link like all others, despite interpretations.

  But I won't insist on the usefulness. After all, any human would have
  something she found useful which others find to be a hack.

-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Saturday, 14 June 2003 07:08:54 UTC