Implementation of Web page navigation

To ensure that the most important element of the page is loaded first and is accessible to all, it is imperative that all UK public sector websites offer text navigation, containing each of the important links, at the very top of each
page.

The text elements within this top navigation bar should be separated by spare + vertical bar (|) character + space which is not part of the link. This avoids the problem with the access technology reading all the links as one.

This text navigation should also use the hotkey capabilities referred to in the WAI guidelines (see section 2.4). This allows authors to assign keyboard actions to hyperlinks. As well as being a useful tool for getting around a website, its primary role is to aid users with motor disabilities who find controlling a pointing device difficult.

This keyboard access is part of the HTML 4 recommendation for all browsers, although this facility can only be used by the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser at present.

Important:

It is essential that once the order of the text navigation is decided on, it is adhered to throughout each page on the website. This allows users to quickly become accustomed to your website structure.

The text elements of the top navigation bar are best formatted using a CSS, ensuring that the text is legible against the background colour and easily displayed by browsers that are unable to interpret CSS.

A sighted person will scan a page and ignore repeating items. A user with a visual impairment cannot do this and they have to tab through each link every time. To assist these users, the first link on the top text navigation bar should offer a jump to bypass the repeating elements. This link should be an internal link to the beginning of the document text itself.