Accessibility Regarding the Reordering of Main Navigation Menu

  • Hello All,

    I’m a totally blind entrepreneur using the latest build of WordPress (3.5 as of this writing) on my sites. I’m using the Genesis Serenity Child theme on:
    https://www.KimLoftis.com
    which is currently going through some quite heavy revisions. I have both the System Access and NVDA screen readers.

    I wanted to re-order some of the pages in my main navigation menu. For instance, my Blog is currently listed way down near the bottom, and I wanted to move it much closer to the top of the menu structure. When going into Appearance and Menus, however, I see no way to reorder pages without seeking sighted assistance.

    I was sure that there use to be combo boxes that allowed one to re-order pages within the menu, rather than utilizing drag and drop. I’ve tried in both the latest Firefox and IE 9, but have found nothing of help.

    Any assistance / suggestions will be most appreciated.

    Thank you in advance!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    We can’t assist with commercial themes. The theme’s vendors are responsible for providing support, for their themes.

    @andrew, I believe the user is requesting assistance specific to the use of Appearance -> Menus, an inbuilt WP function

    @lotusdreamer – I have pinged the community. Many of us are unfamiliar with using WP the way you do. I don’t even know how to test your situation. But I know there are folks who are quite passionate about accessibility issues with WP.

    My suggestion would be to create a custom menu, ordering things as you see fit. But I am only familiar with drag and drop, I don’t know how to navigate around the feature if I coudln’t do that….

    Thread Starter LotusDreamer

    (@lotusdreamer)

    @andrew: Yes, sorry if I was unclear. Rev. Voodoo is correct in that I’m asking about the inbuilt appearance, menus functions. I don’t believe this is theme specific, but can double-check on another site, just to be certain.

    @rev. Voodoo Re: your suggestion of a custom menu. I think I’d run into the exact same problem there with the drag and drop.

    Ultimately, this re-ordering of menu pages is a task I could let my VA take on, but as I migrated to WordPress because of the ease of access and the ability to accomplish admin functions with minimal sighted assistance, that’s a rather annoying thought.

    I spoke with the only other blind webmaster I know utilizing WordPress, and he concurs with me that this functionality (re-ordering menu items without the use of drag and drop) was possible in a previous build.

    Thanks so much for the responses thus far… I very much appreciate them.

    Sorry I’m coming in so late to this but I’ve only just stumbled across it.

    @lotusdreamer: The accessibility levels in the Custom Menus area of WordPress is pretty dreadful and we are pushing for it to be improved in WordPress 3.6/ One suggestion is to incorporate an accessibility option similar to the one used in the Appearance -> Widgets area. Do you think that might work?

    he concurs with me that this functionality (re-ordering menu items without the use of drag and drop) was possible in a previous build.

    There haven’t been any changes to the Custom Menu user interface since it was first introduced in WordPress 3(?). Perhaps your colleague was using another plugin?. If so, I’d very much like to hear of any plugin that had implemented accessible drag and drop.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have a WordPress 3.5 workaround for you at this time but if you would like to join us over at Make WordPress Accessible, we’d value your feedback.

    Thread Starter LotusDreamer

    (@lotusdreamer)

    @ Esmi: My profuse apologies for taking so long to respond to your note. Yes, I whole-heartedly think that something similar to the accessibility options found in Appearance – Widgets section for reordering menus would work very well. Overall, I’m really quite happy with the accessibility to be found with WordPress as a CMS, so if this could be rectified, that would be exceedingly useful.

    Thanks so much for your input!

    Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that there is a lot of new work being done to provide an accessibility option for Custom Menus in 3.6. We don’t think it’s quite perfect yet but it’s definitely a big improvement. Once 3.6 is out, we’d love your feedback on the new changes so that we can continue to enhance them.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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