Re: improving the navigation bars on UAAG documents

"Gregory J. Rosmaita" wrote:
> 
> 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

Because it suggests that the Techniques document is part of the
Guidelines document, which it is not. That is why we removed it
from the WCAG 1.0 navbar.

> --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.

As an appendix sounds good.

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

Yes, that can be changed.
 
> 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

Same reason for not having links back to the guidelines.
 
> 2C. The structural concept used to delineate the nav bar is a DIV --
> could/should this not be changed to a MAP?

Yes.
 
> 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.

Appendix.
 
> 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

There is only a backlink to the guidelines since the checklist
is an appendix to the guidelines.

 
> 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

I don't consider the ideas in this case to be dogfood.  Thank you
for suggesting them. I do not think we should include Guidelines / 
Techniques links from the tops of those documents, however.  They
refer to each other mutually, and thus appear in the references
section.

 - Ian

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Tuesday, 2 May 2000 13:09:01 UTC