[WEB4LIB] Web design frames and screen reader

[Thomas Dowling]

Junus, Ranti wrote:
> All,
> 
> Besides the usual "frame is evil" response, I wonder if any of you aware of formal reports about accessibility issues on using frames in  web design?  My own search gave me nothing. 
> 
> Section 508 indicates that frames can be accessible (by a screen reader) as long as it's titled with text to identify the frame and assist in navigating the frames.  W3C provides documentation/checkpoints on how to make frames more accessible.  With that info, any of you aware of any web design that meets the requirements? 
> 
> In case any of you wondering:
> 1.  No, I don't plan to create frames for our website.  I need the information to formally justify *not* to use frames.
> 2. Yes, I know that we can utilize CSS to create frame-like design.
> 
> 
> thanks in advance,
> ranti.
> 


Evilness isn't enough of a justification? :-)  And why is the burden of 
proof on your shoulders?  Have the frame proponents in your organization 
documented anything that really requires frames and can't be done in 
other ways?  What problem are they supposed to solve?


Since both Section 508 and WCAG concede the possibility of accessible 
frames, you might want to emphasize other points.  For example:

Frames chronically prevent Internet search engines from indexing the 
content of your site.  If you think all your users find your interior 
pages by coming through your home page, they don't.

Frames have a track record of making bookmarking and printing at best 
convoluted and at worst broken.

Authoring accessible frames requires substantive <noframes> content, 
leading to duplication of effort and inevitable problems with keeping 
content synched in two places.

People will create links to pages that you expect to appear only as 
framed documents.  You need to build in some mechanism to make sure your 
site navigation is available to someone coming in through such a link, 
which is often what a frames design was intended to avoid in the first 
place.



Hope that helps.

-- 
Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu