Re: Navigation

A few comments:
1) You should include a "skip to content" or "skip navigation" link at the top of the page, prior to the long 
list of links.  You could also add an accesskey attribute to the link.  You are going to need to decide 
whether the navigation on the right is part of the navigation or part of the content.  I think that since the 
links on the right are context-sensitive, they are content. I'm not sure about the links to news, weather, and 
maps -- those are less context-sensitive, so maybe they are part of the global nav and should be bypass-
able.  You could even use the line at the top of the page as the skip-nav link...

2)  I vote against the mouseovers if they are done at the expense of the expanded list of links.  JAWS 4.01 
now deals with mouseover links to some extent, but not everyone has that version yet.

3) I noticed that the way to determine who the department head is depends on someone noticing that the 
text is bold.  I don't know how to determine this with JAWS/WIndow-Eyes/etc., and I'm willing to bet that 
even if a screen reader user does know how, they won't often try.  With a screen reader I would need to 
ask if a particular piece of text is bold or not.  The answer is probably no, since there are more people who 
aren't department heads, and I get to try again on some other name.  Maybe I'll find one -- what a pain.  In 
reality, this is probably not even necessary since I can guess that the Police Chief is the head of the Police 
department.  

4) Some screen readers (including JAWS 4.01) can move from heading to heading.  If a page doesn't use 
headings this won't work.  It is true that most screen readers don't do this, but more will.  I am in favor of the 
coding practice that minimizes presentation in the html and maximizes structure.  Headers provide structure.

5) Site map -- some people like them, some people don't.  If it is going to be useful, put it in; otherwise, 
don't.  A site map that is structured can still be navigable -- are you planning on including  _every_ link on 
the site in the map? 

6) Homepage reader is another good tool -- easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and gives a decent 
approximation.  You can download a trial version of JAWS at www.hj.com (a 40-minute, then reboot for 40 
more minutes trial) and likewise for window-eyes at www.gwmicro.com.  

7) Lastly, I think you should take a look at the text of your links.  Read the links one by one without any 
surrounding text.  Do they make sense?  For example, "Montpelier Buildings & Assessor's Office" makes 
sense -- I'd expect to be linking to the assessor's office.  On the other hand, "highly-educated work force" 
doesn't make as much sense out of context, especially since it leads to a page on the local economy rather 
than on the work force.  At least there are no "click here" links.  In general, most links seem pretty good in 
this regard, but worth mentioning.

Hope this helps,
Andrew  

1/23/2002 8:48:25 PM, info(at)mtbytes.com wrote:

>I have questions about how to make a website with extensive
>navigation as accessibility friendly as possible.
>
>The specific site I have in mind is for a municipality.
>Although Section 508 is  not mandated for us, we want to
>make the site as accessible as possible.  This is a site I
>did not design, but am now maintaining.
>
>The navigation might not be extensive compared to other
>sites, but I think you can see the concept that there are
>several main sections to the site (down the left side of the
>screen) and lots of subsections (down the right side of the
>screen) within each section.
>
>Here's an example:
>http://www.montpelier-vt.org/htm/citydepts_welcome.shtml
>
>How can we make the navigation as clear as possible and
>still serve accessibility?
>
>In talking things over with me, the person who first had
>this site designed mused about the possibility of using
>mouseovers or rollovers to see a submenu under each main
>section heading.  In some ways it would make the page a
>little neater and would make the navigation more clear, but
>I think it would bring up accessibility issues.
>
>Also, how much navigation does someone want to wade through
>before finally getting to the meat of the page?
>
>Another related navigation question deals with making a site
>map page.  It would give an overview of the whole site and
>where to find things, but it could be horrendous to have to
>listen to an endless page of links.  It is nagging at me
>that if the site navigation is done well enough, a site map
>would be unnessary.  Any thoughts on this?
>
>(I have been using pwWebSpeak to test how pages sound.  I
>wonder if it is a close enough approximation of what most
>screen reader users use.  I bought it several years ago.)
>
>Any helpful suggestions will be appreciated.  Also, any
>links to good examples would be nice, too.
>
>Thank you.
>
>
>
>
Andrew

-- 
Andrew Kirkpatrick, Technical Project Coordinator
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA  02134
E-mail: andrew_kirkpatrick(at)wgbh.org
Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
 

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