RE: Skip to content link

yes, I have always found it perplexing that skip to links in headers are hidden from the very users they are intended to benefit, but does that really mean they fail 2.4.1? 

 

likely, this is trampling ground already well walked, but there remains a mechanism after all even if it only becomes visible once focused? 

 

That is, there is enough wriggle room in the SC for this case to be conforming not to mention other such cases I listed below.

 

And just what normatively constitutes a block anyway? More than two focusable elements?

 

I read Jacob Neilsen’s post about thirty years of accessibility failures shared by Léonie Watson and scoff about generative AI, but ponder whether the gaps in WCAG and its inherent ambiguity are actually part of this failing … nearly 20 years of WCAG 2.x and we’re still debating the fundaments.

 

 

 

 

From: Guy Hickling <guy.hickling@gmail.com> 
Sent: Friday, March 8, 2024 12:18 PM
To: WAI Interest Group discussion list <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Skip to content link

 

Skip links aren't intended for screen reader users, though that may have been how they started in the very early days of the web. They are for sighted keyboard-only users, who have to navigate using only the tab key. Those users do not have any of the options offered by a screen reader. The "Skip to main content" link is specifically so that keyboard users do not have to tab all the way through the header (often 50 or  60 links and buttons on larger sites), otherwise those users have to tab through every link, on every page they go to. Which is also why all skip links must be visible when a user tabs onto them - they fail SC2.4.1 if they are not visible.