[Sigia-l] RE: "Standard" Intranet site sections?

[Douglas Brashear]

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster.  Regarding the usability of
submenus, I've recently dealt with this issue at my client, a large
Federal agency (to remain nameless). Their website content is used
mainly by seniors (not giving it away, I hope) and my criticism of their
current submenus is that the mouse-over area that activates the submenu
is too small to be usable by those with motor skills impairments. In
this case, some of the left side navigation bar items have submenus and
some don't, and the icon used to represent the availability of a submenu
is small and not intuitive. I'd much rather them adopt a new second
level in their page hierarchy, one that provides navigation to more
specific areas with more readily viewable (and possibly categorized)
hyperlinks. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

One more thought about submenus done using DHTML...how compliant with
section 508 can they be made to be, and even if compliant, how easy can
they be for users interacting via assistive technologies?

Thanks!
- Doug
__________________________
CGI-AMS, Inc.
Douglas Brashear
Senior Consultant
12601 Fairlakes Circle
Fairfax, VA  22033
703-633-9839 (office)
703-863-0549 (mobile)
douglas.brashear at cgi-ams.com