Re: DHTML drop down menus ADA compliant

"Jon Gunderson" <jongund@uiuc.edu>
> People talk about screen reader compatibility of pull down menus, but an
> even bigger problem is for people with low vision who are restyling the
> colors and text size of a web page.
>
> When author colors are ignored the menu text background is what ever is
> over on the webpage, making text un readible.

This is primarily about a failure of CSS-P and browser accessibiltiy
settings,  and not a failure drop down menu technology the dynamic nature of
the situation is irrelevant, and the solutions proposed for CSS-P and SVG
will work (I don't know of any solutions proposed for CSS-P or SVG in this,
but it is definately something that needs to be addressed)

> There maybe certain CSS menu techniques based on list markup that maybe
> accessible, but I have not seen any javascript based system that work when
> author colors and font sizes are ignored.

I have actually produced one that works in IE under that setting (by being
able to detect that the setting is in place, and falling back, I don't seem
to have it to hand, and wouldn't like to make claims for it solving other
situations though.)  It's certainly proven more successful for me than the
pure CSS solutions in terms of usability and accessibility.  It may well
have managed to detect it in other browsers too, but I would primarily like
to see browsers discouraged from using this technique, if the override
background colours, they need to either apply that background colour to
CSS-P positioned elements, or remove CSS-P in that mode.

Jim.

Received on Saturday, 17 January 2004 08:13:57 UTC