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| Topics >> by >> The Detailed Guide on Web Design Accessibility | Check Now! |
| The Detailed Guide on Web Design Accessibility | Check Now! Photos Topic maintained by (see all topics) |
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Mobility impairment isn't always as obvious as you might think it is. You don't have to imagine extremes of disability like paralysis or missing limbs. Try imagining a simple fall or other accident that results in both hands in a cast and unable to use a mouse. Now, with that in mind, open your website in your browser, put an unsharpened pencil in your mouth, and try to use the eraser to push the tab key till you get all the way to the main content of your page. Page ContentA skipnav is a link placed at the very beginning of the page that allows a user to skip all the top-bar and sidebar navigation links and go straight to the main content. It's generally a simple text link placed either in the beginning of the header or in a separate div prior to the header. It's one of the very few pieces of page content considered acceptable for cloaking like most accessible web design options, it exists primarily for disabled users and doesn't have to be visible to be useful. AccessibilityWeb design for limited mobility also includes checking your scripts to see if your behaviors are mouse-centric. Without touching your mouse, try to get around your site. There aren't perfect keyboard equivalents of all mouse events, but the major ones are pretty basic. If you have a click event, add the same keypress event. If you have a mouseover event, add the same focus event. If you have a mouseout event, add the same blur event. Accessibility is about making the page useful to everyone no matter how they get to it or have to get around it. Access Key ValueThe access key value of the anchor tag is another good and far underused feature to add to your navigation system. Even though it's not currently supported in some browsers and browser versions, it's one of those things that doesn't hurt your page by being there. Browsers that don't support it just ignore it. Users hold the alt key and press the specified, single, alphanumeric character to either set focus on or activate a link depending on the browser. It allows you to set keyboard shortcuts for primary site navigation. VerdictOther aspects of mobility impairment related to computer usage may not occur to you initially. These include slowed reflexes, lack of coordination, tremors, ticks, palsy, arthritis, and anything else that might make a user's hands uncooperative. I, for one, have a hard time double-clicking fast enough for the computer to register it as such. |
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