Example 7 - The Road Less Traveled, Keyboard-Only Users and Navigation Blocks
Summary
Users who use keyboard to navigate a website require a method to jump past blocks of navigation links. Some websites have implemented a "skip-to-nav" or "skip to main content" link that enables keyboard only users to jump over groups of navigation links, or directly to the main content on the webpage. The emergence of ARIA landmarks and html5 structural elements such as <main>, <header>, <footer> and <aside> offer up exciting possibilities to enable keyboard only users to navigate directly to important parts of a webpage. But so far users require assistive technology applications, such as screen readers, to take advantage of these structural elements.
Examples
skip to main content
Example Page Title
Antilles Lucas ipsum dolor sit amet mon kenobi naboo ben yoda moff moff organa lando ventress. Secura greedo darth sidious owen ackbar. Skywalker jade ben dooku coruscant fett r2-d2 grievous. Calamari kit kessel wookiee endor ben wampa. Darth moff skywalker dantooine binks boba leia. Mothma organa padmé solo moff jinn skywalker vader chewbacca. Dooku antilles antilles fisto. Skywalker yoda hutt vader windu hoth zabrak twi'lek moff. Utapau palpatine sith antilles fett amidala..
Darth mon padmé fett skywalker. Grievous dooku hutt cade mandalore jade jabba. Yavin windu greedo antilles. Darth sidious moff cade hutt moff. Calrissian jabba luke leia kessel coruscant windu. Droid zabrak lando moff gonk mon. Kessel fett wedge chewbacca moff mandalore. Calrissian utapau darth padmé darth. Dantooine lando lobot watto. Darth ben yoda hutt jade utapau fisto kamino. Ackbar wookiee secura boba biggs moff. Darth chewbacca jango zabrak.
Explanation
Minimally, a "skip to main content" link is provided at the beginning of the webpage so that a user may jump past navigation blocks and to the main content of the page. We recommend the target to be a main element or H1 element. A Javascript patch may be required for some browsers. But when we use proper heading structure as well as ARIA landmarks (based on HTML5 elements), should we have to manually create a "skip to main" link, as well as quick links to other important sections of our website?
Imagine...
You are a developer working on a website with a large number of links. Your page uses all the html5 landmarks retrofitted with ARIA landmark roles. You have already implemented a "skip to main" link but you want to do right by the keyboard only users.
Should you create a collection of skip links and other widgets to help the user, or should you stay pat and file bugs with all the browser vendors you know (and some that you don't know) about title attributes on focusable elements, and put in a request for a browser-based keyboard navigation to structural elements on webpages?