improving the navigation bars on UAAG documents

aloha, y'all!

there have been a lot of complaints about the usability of the WAI suite of 
guidelines--in particular, getting from one associated document (the main 
guidelines document, for example) to another (such as the checklist or 
associated techniques document), and back again...  these complaints have 
taken 2 forms: (1) i want a direct mapping from the topic being discussed 
in one document to the discussion of the same topic in another document, 
and (2) i can't find the damn techniques document!!!

the following are some specific suggestions as to how the navigatability 
and usability of the UAAG suite of documents might be easily improved:

1. The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines

1A. Currently, the UAAG nav bar consists only of the following items:

	contents
	checklist
	linear checklist

1B. Why not also provide a top-level link to the Techniques document--a lot 
of people whom i have pointed at the UAAG have complained that you have to 
dig deep down (or use a list of links, if you are fortunate enough to have 
that functionality available to you through your UA) to find a link to the 
Techniques document...  The new navigation bar would include the following 
items:

	contents
	checklist
	linear checklist
	techniques
	accesskeys

1C. Since the UAAG utilizes ACCESSKEY, why not also add an "accesskey" nav 
bar link that leads to a list of the accesskey bindings used in the 
document--the listing of accesskeys should appear either as an appendix to 
the glossary, or as an appendix unto itself.

1D. The structural concept used to delineate the nav bar is a DIV -- 
could/should this not be changed to a MAP?

2. Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines

Currently, the Techniques document for UAAG has a nav bar with only one item:

	contents

Would it not be more beneficial (not to mention logical) to add the following:

	contents
	guidelines
	checklist
	linear checklist
	accesskeys

points C and D enumerated for the UAAG document apply to the techniques 
document, as well

2C. The structural concept used to delineate the nav bar is a DIV -- 
could/should this not be changed to a MAP?

2D. Since the UAAG utilizes ACCESSKEY, why not also add an "accesskey" nav 
bar link that leads to a list of the accesskey bindings used in the 
document--the listing of accesskeys should appear either as an appendix to 
the glossary, or as an appendix unto itself.

3. The Checklists

3A. Currently, both iterations of the UAAG Checklist (tabular and linear) 
have only one item in their navigation bar:

	guidelines

This should be expanded to include, for the tabular checklist:

	linear checklist
	guidelines
	techniques
	accesskeys

Although i realize that--at present, at least--there are no accesskeys 
defined for either version of the checklist

For the linear checklist, the navigation bar should be expanded to include:

	tabular checklist
	guidelines
	techniques
	accesskeys

3C. The structural concept used to delineate the nav bar is a DIV -- 
could/should this not be changed to a MAP?

these are small changes, i know, but it is not only a question of eating 
our own dog food (i.e. using the MAP element to distinguish a navigation 
bar and providing documentation for accesskeys), but of making the 
documents easier to use

gregory
--------------------------------------------------------
He that lives on Hope, dies farting
      -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1763
--------------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita <unagi69@concentric.net>
    WebMaster and Minister of Propaganda, VICUG NYC
         <http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/vicug/index.html>
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Received on Tuesday, 2 May 2000 13:01:39 UTC