[thelist] Re: Perkins School for the Blind's new site

[James Newbery]

 --- Ben Gustafson <Ben_Gustafson at lionbridge.com>
wrote:
> Just goes to show me that what is "harder to
> navigate" for the sited may be
> easier to navigate for the visually impaired, and
> vice versa.

True, sort of. What the designers have done here is to
optimise the navigation for their main user group -
people with visual impairments, while leaving it
accessible enough for people without visual
impairments to use. This is an admirable case of
forward-thinking, user-centred design.

Instead of providing a link allowing screen-reader
users to 'skip navigation', they have provided a link
for non screen-readers to 'skip to navigation'.

This makes perfect sense if the majority of your users
are going to be using screen readers.

Of course, the better solution is to always treat
different user needs equally, rather than being forced
to degrade your design for less well-represented
groups - i.e. having to have a 'skip' link at all.

In this example that would mean providing consistent
top-of-page navigation for those using visual
browsers, and end-of-page navigation for those using
screen readers. Hopefully, with XML and XSLT, this
sort of solution will become more feasible.

Jim



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