Ordering navigation code and content code

fup2 c.i.w.a.site-design

Hi,

What do you think: Is it better to put code describing navigational
elements to the top or to the bottom of content?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking about whether to render
navigational elements near the top of the page but merely where to
place the code in the .html file.

One problem with placing navigation at the start of HTML code arises
with machine-generated excerpts, as found in Web Directories and Search
Engine results: Content is often extracted from the top of the page
which would be navigational elements.

When placing navigation at the end of HTML code, however, users
perceiving a "accessible", i.e. as coded, layout of the page would have
to repeatedly skip to the end of intermediate pages to navigate to the
page they want to retrieve.


What do you think?

Regards,

Wolf

Wolfgang Meier wrote:

fup2 c.i.w.a.site-design

Hi,

What do you think: Is it better to put code describing navigational
elements to the top or to the bottom of content?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking about whether to render
navigational elements near the top of the page but merely where to
place the code in the .html file.

One problem with placing navigation at the start of HTML code arises
with machine-generated excerpts, as found in Web Directories and Search
Engine results: Content is often extracted from the top of the page
which would be navigational elements.

When placing navigation at the end of HTML code, however, users
perceiving a "accessible", i.e. as coded, layout of the page would have
to repeatedly skip to the end of intermediate pages to navigate to the
page they want to retrieve.


What do you think?
I would think that someone who is reading the page usually wants to look at

the content before deciding to jump to another page - unless it's a known
index page and the user knows in advance that she/he will to jump to
another page. Don't know which once is the more common case, I'd guess the
former one.
In any case - just like a 'Jump to content' link at the top, if the
navigation is at the top, you should add a 'Jump to navigation' link.

--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/

"Wolfgang Meier" <womei (AT) sofort-mail (DOT) de> wrote:

What do you think: Is it better to put code describing navigational
elements to the top or to the bottom of content?

Bottom has a slight edge in theory, but if you then want to place it on
top of the page you'd need CSS absolute positioning which brings with it
a lot of caveats and inherent drawbacks. In practice best keep it on
top.

When placing navigation at the end of HTML code, however, users
perceiving a "accessible", i.e. as coded, layout of the page would have
to repeatedly skip to the end of intermediate pages to navigate to the
page they want to retrieve.

Depending on where the client has positioned the page, the same applies
if you position it first in the code. Users can use the top and bottom
navigational elements provided by most UAs (Home and End keys for most
Windows desktop agents).

--
Spartanicus

Wolfgang Meier wrote:

When placing navigation at the end of HTML code, however, users
perceiving a "accessible", i.e. as coded, layout of the page would
have to repeatedly skip to the end of intermediate pages to
navigate to the page they want to retrieve.

I use a "skip to navigation" link above the content, hidden by CSS,
and with the corresponding name element at the beginning of the ul/li
for the menu.

<div class="ahem">
<p>You may go directly to <a title="Navigate" href="#themenu">the
navigation menu</a> after the content.
</p>
</div>

..ahem { display: none; }

What do you think?

Makes sense to me...

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

I use a "skip to navigation" link above the content, hidden by CSS,
and with the corresponding name element at the beginning of the ul/li
for the menu.

.ahem { display: none; }

Two points:

1. Most screen readers are screen readers and not aural browsers. If it
isn't displayed, they won't read it.

2. Skip links are useful for perfectly sighted users who happen to use the
keyboard (or other non-pointing device) to navigate instead of the mouse[1]
(and thus tab through links one at a time).

[1] Possibly because they can't use the mouse

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed David Dorward <dorward (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
writing in news:d9sf8q$1us$1$8302bc10 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

I use a "skip to navigation" link above the content, hidden by CSS,
and with the corresponding name element at the beginning of the ul/li
for the menu.

.ahem { display: none; }

Two points:

1. Most screen readers are screen readers and not aural browsers. If it
isn't displayed, they won't read it.

2. Skip links are useful for perfectly sighted users who happen to use
the keyboard (or other non-pointing device) to navigate instead of the
mouse[1] (and thus tab through links one at a time).

3. Good for small screen devices, too, like phones, where the user can skip

to the main content without having to scroll.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

David Dorward wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

I use a "skip to navigation" link above the content, hidden by
CSS, and with the corresponding name element at the beginning of
the ul/li for the menu.

.ahem { display: none; }

Two points:

Points taken.

1. Most screen readers are screen readers and not aural browsers.
If it isn't displayed, they won't read it.

Do you know if these screen readers observe CSS? I haven't used one
for a couple of years, and the last one (couldn't name it now) did not
recognize CSS - in which case they would present the link.

2. Skip links are useful for perfectly sighted users who happen to
use the keyboard (or other non-pointing device) to navigate instead
of the mouse[1] (and thus tab through links one at a time).

True, they would have to tab through any links in the content, but on
my pages, there aren't many. <g>

[1] Possibly because they can't use the mouse

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

1. Most screen readers are screen readers and not aural browsers.
If it isn't displayed, they won't read it.

Do you know if these screen readers observe CSS? I haven't used one
for a couple of years, and the last one (couldn't name it now) did not
recognize CSS - in which case they would present the link.

They generally just tie in to IE and use whatever its rendering engine spits
out.


--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

kchayka wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

David Dorward wrote:

1. Most screen readers are screen readers and not aural
browsers. If it isn't displayed, they won't read it.

Do you know if these screen readers observe CSS?

The short answer: What David said.

The long answer (see table about halfway down the page):
URL:http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ScreenreaderVisibility

Both visibility:hidden and display:none will be invisible to the
most-used screen readers.

Nice link. Thanks.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.