A bit of ranting about Ubuntu.com

[Paul O'Malley]

Mark Shuttleworth wrote:

Hi,

>With nested pages, we currently have the problem that you have to CLICK
>on the top-level page ("Participate!") in order to get a sense of the
>other pages that are available below it.
>  
>
It could be argued that once a person is on a site they are there to 
participate.

>How do you guys feel about those drop-down menus that some web sites
>have. When you mouseover the top tab, it shows a list of the
>sub-sections that are part of that tab.
>  
>

Be careful about this, it is unfortunate that drop down menus alone 
breach accessibility guidelines.
There are things that can be done to mitigate this.
First up is to ensure that if the menus are not there the site can still 
be navigated.
Here are two documents, one on why they are bad, the second shows a way 
forward.

See:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/webpack/factsheet15.shtml
15.5.4
However this is not insurmountable, there are acouple of things that can 
be done, one is as in that document. Test with a non java enabled browser.

Or have a look at this, which I found while researching this mail.
They have a section at the bottom of the page on disabling drop down menus.

http://www.ethicaltrade.org/Z/home/discl/index.shtml

Regards,

Paul