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In addition, drop-down navigation presents difficulty for those with impaired movement,
especially if the drop-downs contain nested menus that require careful mouse control to
reveal. Since the appearance of elements relies on the position of the mouse and not
actual definitive clicks, anyone with tremors, arthritis, or other motor control impedances
will have a difficult time with drop-downs.
There is no perfect, magical cure for drop-downs. Developers can, however, take several
measures to ensure that their audience will have as little trouble as possible using them:
Use a drop-down script that adheres to web standards: And luckily, there is no reason
to write one of your own, because Patrick Griffiths and Dan Webb have written
an elegant solution called Suckerfish Dropdowns.9 This uses nested list elements
styled with CSS. JavaScript is only needed for versions of Internet Explorer 6 and
earlier; other browsers use pure CSS to activate the drop-down. Also, because all of
the menu links are written in plain HTML, they are easily navigable by screen readers,
cell phones, and other devices where CSS is absent.
Offer a large hit area: Make root and subsidiary elements as large as possible for
mouse movements.
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