Re: Breadcrumbs

Phill,
CSS can be used to restyle <LI> elements to create a number 
of graphic effects in current browsers.

Jon


---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 14:51:59 -0500
>From: Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com>  
>Subject: Re: Breadcrumbs  
>To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>
>   >Then bigger issue here is giving a useful "label"
>   to any
>   >collection of navigation links on a web page.  
>
>   Yes I agree with the "label" notion, I even
>   suggested the title attribute myself
>
>   >   One design option would be to add the title
>   attribute to
>   >   the first link,
>
>   > Users generally want to navigate over them to get
>   > to main content and directly to them to benefit
>   from their
>   > convenience.  
>   > ...
>   > Example markup:
>   > <map name="navbar" title="Bread Crumbs">
>
>   Yes, I even like your suggestion of using the MAP
>   element to group the bread crumb links
>
>   ><ol>
>   ><li><a href="home.html">Home</a></li>
>   ><li><a href="level1.html">Level 1</a></li>
>   ><li><a href="level2.html">Level 2</a></li>
>   ></ol>
>   ></map>
>
>   But using an ordered list does not convey to me a
>   bread crumb list.  The screen reader would treat
>   this ordered list like any other ordered list, and
>   would say:
>   1. Home
>   2. Level 1
>   3. Level 2
>
>   Also, the sighted users would not recognize it as a
>   bread crumb list.  The only clue the sighted user
>   would get is from the tool tip [ title attribute]
>   when they moved the mouse over the map of links.
>    Using CSS to format the order list horizontally
>   would improve it somewhat, but the numbers, letters,
>   etc. coming from the order list tag is what doesn't
>   make sense to me.  For example, seeing or hearing
>   the following would not be recognizable to me as a
>   bread crumb list:
>
>   Bread crumbs, Map with 3 items:
>   1. Home, 2. Level 1, 3. Level 3
>
>   No commercial site is using order list to mark-up
>   Bread crumbs.  Ordered list only sequence not
>   hierarchy.  But maybe a best practice would be to
>   wrap the traditional way of listing links in a bread
>   crumb combined with the "label" (title attribute) on
>   a MAP element.  Then the sighted users would see no
>   difference from the traditional bread crumb list,
>   except the added benefit of the tool tip / mouse
>   over.  And the screen reader and keyboard only user
>   would be able to navigate to the list and skip over
>   the list, because of MAP support, and the screen
>   reader user would hear something like:
>   Bread crumbs, Map with 3 items:
>
>   Home, which includes Products, followed by Specific
>   Product, which contains This Page.
>
>   Improved example markup without ordered list, but
>   including icons for the above:
>   <map title="Bread Crumbs">
>   <a href="home.html">Home</a>
>   <img src="GreaterThan.jpg" alt="which includes"><a
>   href="level1.html">Level 1</a>
>
>   <img src="GreaterThan.jpg" alt="followed by"><a
>   href="level2.html">Level 2</a>
>
>   <img src="GreaterThan.jpg" alt="which contans">This
>   page.
>
>   </map>
>
>   which could be replace by a hierarchal bread crumb
>   list <bl> tag in XHTML 2 in the future:
>
>   <bl title="Bread Crumbs">
>   <li><a href="home.html">Home</a></li>
>   <li><a href="level1.html">Level 1</a></li>
>   <li><a href="level2.html">Level 2</a></li>
>   <li>This page.</li>
>   </bl>
>
>   Regards,
>   Phill Jenkins


Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL  61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund

Received on Wednesday, 4 August 2004 18:01:28 UTC