Skip Navigation Links

Adding Skip Navigation Links
Resources
Next Topic: Timed Responses
Previous Topic: Forms
Web Accessibility Home

If your web site has the same information and navigation at the top and/or left side of every page, it can be tedious and redundant for a user with a screen reader to hear the information repeated. To combat this problem, you can create either a visible or invisible link that allows the reader to skip ahead to the main content area of your web page. This is referred to as a "Skip Navigation Link".

Creating a Skip Navigation Link is really a simple process:

1. Add a bookmark at the start of the main content on your web page. (Called an Anchor tag in some web development tools.)
2. If you plan to use an invisible link that only screen readers will recognize, create a small transparent GIF image in a drawing program.
3. Insert the invisible image or text for the skip navigation as close to the top left of your document as possible.
4. Create a hyperlink from your image or text that takes users to the bookmark created in the first step.

Adding Skip Navigation Links in FrontPage

Creating a Bookmark
Printable/Accessible Version (opens in new window)

Creating a small transparent GIF image in PhotoDraw
Printable/Accessible Version (opens in new window)

Creating a hyperlink to a book mark from an image
Printable/Accessible Version (opens in new window)

Creating a text hyperlink to a bookmark
Printable/Accessible Version (opens in new window)

Viewlets require Macromedia Flash Player.

Back to top

Resources

Macromedia Tutorial on Skip Navigation Links (very beneficial for Dreamweaver users)

Jim Thatcher Tutorial on Skip Navigation Links

Back to top