[Web4lib] Dreamweaver: drop-down jump menu rpoblem

Fri Jul 8 11:31:53 EDT 2005

Drop down menus such as the one Sarah Hood uses at Columbia College are
nice, but can present accessibility and cross-platform compatibility issues.

For example, the implementation on Sarah's pages requires javascript enabled
in the browser.  It won't work in browsers where the user has disabled
javascript or in the small number of browers that don't support javascript
at all.

The form field lacks an action, and instead the select includes
	onChange="MM_jumpMenu('parent',this,0)"
which is intended to invoke the Javascript function MM_jumpMenu.  The
immediate problem with Sarah's pages is that she copied the code for the
drop down menu but didn't copy all the code (in the <head> section) that
implements the function.

However, this use of javascript is problematic for accessibility reasons,
since some people are going to want to change the value of the drop-down
without invoking the jump.

Try surfing the pages without a mouse (Just use the keyboard.  That's an
easy test of one set of important accessibility issues).  You'll probably
find that you can tab to the drop down menu, but that as soon as you use the
downarrow key on the keyboard to scroll through the menu looking for a
destination (on some browsers not till you tab to the next dropdown menu)
the jump will be immediately activated.

I'd advise providing alternatives for non-javascript and mouseless patrons.

JQ Johnson, Director                 Office: 115F Knight Library 
Center for Educational Technologies  mailto:jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon            phone: 1-541-346-1746; -3485 fax
Eugene, OR 97403-1299                http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/