inserting header tags into vertical navigation?

[tmikk]

I am working on a site with vertical navigation with nav_default as the navigation template. We have main level menu and submenu. There are many submenu items that when left visible would extend the menu past the visible page. So, I added a stop level 1 to only display the first level and display the submenu when the first level menu is clicked (http://sandbox.oed.umn.edu/ac).

This kind of a navigation makes it difficult for screen reader users to use the website. When they click the main menu item, the page reloads and they begin listing links from the top of the page. How could I improve the navigation to make it easier for people to find the link in the menu that they clicked?

One thought I had was to add heading tags to the main menu items. This way a user could navigate by the main menu header tags. Is it possible to add header tags to the main menu items and how?

[Ben]

What about using the tabindexes for each top level navigation item? Not sure how screen readers interact with TI's, but it might be the answer. I don't think it's very standard to use h1-6 tags in navigation since it isn't really a heading. You might also want to look into integrating a mootools or jquery dropdown menu, since it would allow you to list navigation levels on the page at once in the standard unordered list format.

[tmikk]

Thanks Ben. We remedied the navigation a little by adding a heading with H1 tag on top of the menu what says "What's inside". We are afraid to use the tab index because their maintenance can get a bit tricky. Also, I looked at the mootools extension, but learned that it is not yet approved for TL 2.7.6 . We will continue to experiment.

[Ben]

I didn't know there was an extension. I would just implement something like this: http://users.tpg.com.au/j_birch/plugins/superfish

[tmikk]

Interesting, thanks for the link, Ben. It probably does not help the blind user. According to our testing they are still taken to the top of the page after clicking on the link in the main level. But it is good to know about this option.