RE: Using Heading to Replace Skip Links

Yes, sorry should have made that clear.  My test methodology is for research purposes as I have to give a score - counting violations.

If I was selling or recommending a site, it would need to have the skip links (and visible) or heads would roll :)


Regards

Vivienne L. Conway, B.IT(Hons), MACS CT
PhD Candidate & Sessional Lecturer, Edith Cowan University, Perth, W.A.
Director, Web Key IT Pty Ltd.
v.conway@ecu.edu.au
v.conway@webkeyit.com
Mob: 0415 383 673

This email is confidential and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify me immediately by return email or telephone and destroy the original message.
________________________________________
From: Charles McCathieNevile [chaals@opera.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 May 2012 6:39 PM
To: Patrick H. Lauke; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; Vivienne CONWAY
Subject: Re: Using Heading to Replace Skip Links

On Wed, 09 May 2012 12:11:25 +0200, Vivienne CONWAY <v.conway@ecu.edu.au>
wrote:

> Hi all
>
> Wow, thanks for all your speedy responses.
>
> Judging from your responses, I'm leaning towards always doing an
> additional screen reader test for that point if there are no skip
> links.  I normally always check every page with at least NVDA anyway.
> If there are no skip links, I'll see if I can use the heading structure
> to get to the main content.  If so, I think I should assume that it
> passes 2.4.1.
>
> Does that sound reasonable?

Assuming you are describing your test methodology, rather than letting
people sell a site as fine for user setups that won't actually work.

cheers

> Regards
>
> Vivienne L. Conway, B.IT(Hons), MACS CT
> PhD Candidate & Sessional Lecturer, Edith Cowan University, Perth, W.A.
> Director, Web Key IT Pty Ltd.
> v.conway@ecu.edu.au
> v.conway@webkeyit.com
> Mob: 0415 383 673
>
> This email is confidential and intended only for the use of the
> individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient,
> you are notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
> email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error,
> please notify me immediately by return email or telephone and destroy
> the original message.
> ________________________________________
> From: Patrick H. Lauke [redux@splintered.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, 9 May 2012 5:18 PM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Using Heading to Replace Skip Links
>
> In which case, if that's how you see it, you can interpret WCAG 2.0's SC
> as only being fulfilled if a page has skip links. That's the beauty of
> WCAG 2.0 ... it's so open to interpretation :)
>
> However, this does open up more interesting discussions: if the
> functionality is available, but only if users have a particular
> browser/extension/AT, is it a pass or a fail? The argument seems to be
> that it should work everywhere, regardless of what software the user
> has. Taking it to extremes, does that mean a site should be usable by a
> visually impaired/blind user when they're not using a screen reader?
> Should we then require sites to be self-voicing? A strawman, admittedly,
> but this goes to the heart of "accessibility supported".
>
> P
>
>
> On 09/05/2012 10:09, Rajiv Shah wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> In plain English, I think that, without browser extensions, user agents
>> provide no method keyboard method to skp past headings on a page. Skip
>> links at least aid the keyboard user without the use of any add-ons to
>> provide this feature. This, of course, helps someone with a mobility
>> impairment.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Rajiv
>>
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>>> Date: Wed, 09 May 2012 09:57:08 +0100
>>> From: "Patrick H. Lauke"<redux@splintered.co.uk>
>>> Subject: Re: Using Heading to Replace Skip Links
>>> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>>>
>>> On 09/05/2012 09:24, Vivienne CONWAY wrote:
>>>> The reason I ask all of this, is that some of the automated tools
>>>> pick up the lack of  skip links as failures of 2.4.6. and others
>>>> don't, especially if there are semantically structured headings (h1
>>>> etc).
>>>
>>> Automated tools were never reliable, even in WCAG 1.0 times, as
>>> solutions are not binary accessible/not-accessible. This is even more
>>> true for WCAG 2.0 which is driven by SCs that can be achieved in a
>>> variety of known (what's documented in the informative techniques) and
>>> unknown (something that's not documented, but achieves the same end
>>> result for real users) ways.
>>>
>>>> Frankly, I think it should be a requirement as we're wanting to make
>>>> things better for people to get to the content, not more difficult.
>>>> However, that probably comes down to usability.
>>>
>>> Then you'd end up having to add qualifiers like "Until user agents..."
>>> to the requirements, and focus explicitly on specific markup constructs
>>> (rather than being technology-agnostic), which are both things that
>>> WCAG
>>> 2.0 tried very hard to shy away from.
>>>
>>> P
>>> --
>>> Patrick H. Lauke
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>> re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
>>> [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
>>>
>>> www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
>>> http://redux.deviantart.com | http://flickr.com/photos/redux/
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>>
>
>
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
> ______________________________________________________________
> re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
> [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
> http://redux.deviantart.com | http://flickr.com/photos/redux/
> ______________________________________________________________
> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> ______________________________________________________________
>
> This e-mail is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient you
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--
Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan noen norsk
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Received on Wednesday, 9 May 2012 11:19:18 UTC