Confused about skiplink function

  • Resolved Ate Up With Motor

    (@ate-up-with-motor)


    6 years, 1 month ago

    I’m trying to set up skiplinks for my site using the plugin and am lost. I configured the skiplinks correctly, but there are three really obvious problems:

    First, with skiplinks set to always visible, I can see the links at the top of the page. However, when I try to click on them, the mouse-over style change causes the link to jump to the upper left corner and flip back and forth in a way that makes it quite difficult to actually click the link with a mouse. How can I get it to stop doing that?

    Second, if the “Skiplinks always visible” box is NOT checked, under what circumstances will the skiplinks become functional? How can users (whether with screen readers or not) know they’re there and get at them?

    Third, what’s the syntax necessary for the style boxes? Can I just put in CSS attributes like “font-size: 15px;”? Or do I have to write a mini-stylesheet to go in that space? Or something else?

    These are probably really dumb questions, but I’m not a developer and about half of this is completely over my head. Help!

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Thread Starter Ate Up With Motor

    (@ate-up-with-motor)

    Okay, I sort of figured out the third question enough to make the links transparent when not in focus, but that doesn’t stop them from jumping around — attempting to click them with the mouse is not unlike trying to eat grapes with chopsticks.

    Plugin Author Joe Dolson

    (@joedolson)

    It seems like you got your skip links sorted. I also saw another thread from you in theme support: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/accessibility-issues-6/

    Multiple header and footer elements is actually OK – those elements indicate a header or a footer for a content block *or* for the full page. On their own, they don’t need to be unique. If you’re trying to assign landmarks using WP Accessibility, you’d assign them by IDs. E.g., the footer would be the container with ID ‘bottom-bar’.

    Thread Starter Ate Up With Motor

    (@ate-up-with-motor)

    Thanks for that. And yes, I finally got the skiplinks to work in rudimentary fashion, although getting them styled properly is still a work in progress.

    I’m still wondering about my second question, though: If the “Skiplinks always visible” box is NOT checked, under what circumstances will the skiplinks become functional? How can users (whether with screen readers or not) know they’re there and get at them?

    (I dealt with this for the moment by leaving them visible always, but setting their opacity to 0 when not in focus. I’m not sure that’s the best way, though.)

    Thanks!

    Plugin Author Joe Dolson

    (@joedolson)

    Sorry; missed that!

    If the cookies are not visible by default, they will become visible when the user tabs to them using the keyboard. Normal keyboard navigation of a web page is via the tab key (to move forward in the page) and shift + tab to reverse direction. This navigation moves through focusable objects on the page: buttons, links, and form fields.

    There’s some variability on that depending on browser and OS settings, but that’s the basic information.

    Screen readers don’t depend on the skiplinks becoming visible to be able to use them, as they’re using a non-visual interface, but people with mobility impairments who are unable to use a mouse depend on being able to see the skip link.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The topic ‘Confused about skiplink function’ is closed to new replies.