RE: DHTML drop down menus ADA compliant

Thanks Joe.

I am certainly aware that these css techniques have been around... they are not really new and daring.  However, there still does not seem to be a satisfactory example of these dynamic menus being accessible to most browsers and most adaptive technology.  e.g. they don't seem to work with Jaws in a satisfactory way and the css versions don't work with IE in a satisfactory way.  Many of the issues are to do with browser support of css etc.

Thus I still think there is a bit of thought... or at least planning... that needs to be done in as much as getting things to work well together.  That is, user agent developers, adaptive technology developers, and the w3c specifications for technologies and accessibility of these technologies need to be moving in the same direction at much the same pace.  Maybe this is a bit idealistic, but it is a concept that is still struggling way after 2001.  (as we all know, the W3C works on guidelines for user agents, authoring tools and web content, but there is still a way to go).

So can you provide an example on the web (or one you have coded yourself) of a set of dynamic flyout navigation menus that do all of the following:
1.  Supported in full by most of the recent browsers.  (Must work in at least IE and Netscape).
2.  Work with most adaptive technology.  (Must at least work with Jaws and Window-Eyes and the screen enlargers)
3.  Use css as much as possible with JavaScript only used where absolutely necessary (hopefully not at all).
4.  Graceful transformations into lists etc. where the browser does not or is set not to support scripts and/or css.
5.  Good colour contrast etc, and fully customisable by css etc.
6.  Works well with various screen resolutions and fonts and sizes, etc.
7.  Device independent in as much as the keyboard can be used alone to navigate the menus, (this is with or without a screen reader active).  So it may need to use a set of keyboard shortcuts etc.
8.  Has redundant pages of links accessed from the menu itself (as we have discussed on list recently).

I am sure you will agree that if (as you say) the technology is as old as 2001, the above should not really b a lot to ask in 2004?

It is worth noting that many of the recent examples I have seen on this mailing list cover the vast majority of these points quite well.  It is just one or two that seem to be missing in each example.  I admit that one of the problem issues is IE support of hover on other elements...

Mat.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Clark [mailto:joeclark@joeclark.org]
> Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 8:25 AM
> To: WAI-IG
> Subject: Re: DHTML drop down menus ADA compliant
> 
> 
> 
> >Actually I have seen some claims that the whole thing can be done 
> >using CSS with no need to have scripts at all? does anyone know of 
> >examples?
> 
> Dozens! Google "CSS menus".
> 
> The latest incarnation seems to be Clagnut's 
> <http://www.clagnut.com/blog/277/>. Feel free to test it. And do a 
> bit of research, please. You're acting like these 2001-era techniques 
> are daring new concepts we'll have to really think about for a few 
> years before implementing.
> -- 
> 
>      Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org | <http://joeclark.org/access/>
>      Author, _Building Accessible Websites_ | 
> <http://joeclark.org/book/>
>      Expect criticism if you top-post
> 
>

Received on Sunday, 18 January 2004 17:48:44 UTC