Accessibility > Implementing Section 508 > Implementing Rule O >

Using Styles to Position Navigation Links

This page uses styles to position the navigation links so a sighted viewer can see the navigation bar near the top of the page.

The navigation bar information is coded below this paragraph in this HTML document. This results in the above headers and paragraph being the first bit of information read by a linear browser.

Below is the code for the styles:

Using this method may limit the "stretchability" of the page, since the objects do not flow around each other and re-size well. At some point, the navigation bar, if compressed too much horizontally (by resizing the browser window), will resize vertically and then overlap the main content. However, it would have to get really small for that to happen.

Note, however, that the side navigation panels remain as they were in the original document, and would need additional skipovers.

Additionally, using this method does not produce consistent results across browsers. For example, in IE 6.0, the navigation bar extends beyond the table, even with an attempt to force a right margin. On the other hand, in IE 5.0, a double-sized right margin is rendered, preventing the navigation bar from extending to the edge of the second table.