[WEB4LIB] Library websites and WAI guidelines

[Thomas Dowling]

Drew, Bill wrote:

>I have gotten our library website to comply with W3C WAI Level 1 and 2
>accessibility guidelines. How are other proceeding on getting their pages to
>comply with Level 3?
>

I ignore level 3.  Sorry, but the goal doesn't merit the work involved 
(IMO of course):

  [Priority 3]
    A Web content developer *may* [W3C's emphasis] address this
    checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat
    difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this
    checkpoint will improve access to Web documents.

Not even a "should", not even a "will remove significant barriers".

>The other area concerns using 'accesskey'.  What about pages with large
>numbers of links on them?
>  
>

I thought the accessibility folks had thrown in the towel on accesskey.  
It may have been a good idea, but it has no built-in user interface, and 
no way to select for it in CSS (that is, no way to select just the "N" 
in <a href="next.html" accesskey="n">Next</a>).  So at best there's a 
*lot* of manual tagging to highlight or underline the accessekey 
characters, or trust the browser to dig them all out for the user.  
Also, any implementation of it in the browser ends up screwing up the 
browser's own keyboard short cuts.

>9.5 Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in
>client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.
>
>    * Rule: 9.5.1 - All Anchor, AREA, BUTTON, INPUT, LABEL, LEGEND, and
>TEXTAREA elements are required to use the 'accesskey' attribute.
>
>Any suggestions?
>  
>

Say hello to Mr. Tab Key.


-- 
Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu