[thelist] Re: unobtrusive JS menus (was [OT] Da Vinci)

[Stephane Deschamps]

On 4/16/05, Christian Heilmann wrote:
> An unobtrusive example:
> http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/unobtrusivejavascript/cssjsseparation.html

Hi Chris,

Actually I've had troubles with this unobtrusive approach. Adding
events on elements which are not proper links is a pain with screen
readers (namely, JAWS upon IE).

I did a collapsible menu that relied on this principle, so some
content was hidden via a script and the headings were clickable so
that the content could be revealed/hidden if needed. But JAWS did not
list the headings as clickable items: for it, they were simple text.
Thus the submenus's content was never visible for a blind user. (sorry
for the unintended pun on visible/blind).

I dismissed this method and now insert programmatically some clickable
elements (plus/minus images with an alt text like
'open/close'+menuDescription). My blind testers find it highly more
usable, even if the notion of showing/hiding is still theoretical for
them of course.

My code is still unobtrusive, but now it's more accessible.
(and yes, I should make it public, but have no time at the moment for it)

-- 
Stephane Deschamps
personal: http://nota-bene.org/
org: http://evolt.org/
french org: http://pompage.net/