If a web designer is one of the 20% of Americans who cannot read the normal font sizes of Drupal black drop down administrative menues at the top of each pate, his/her only current solution appears to be changing the Zoom in the browser--typically to 150% or larger. However if that is done, some of the menues extend beyond the bottom of the screen. If the user mouses to the scroll bar to scroll down to see the whole drop down menu, the menu disappears. The cursor must be on the black menu somewhere in order to keep the menu visiable.
I am a relativly new Drupal user, but it appears to me that there are two approaches to a solution. One would be easy; the other, more elegant but more work. The elegant solution would identify the size of the window the magnification and if it is too small to contain the whole menue, deploy the menu in horizontal blocks. The easy solution would be to terminate the view of the menu only after there is an affirmative click somewhere in the window outside the menu but not including the scroll bars. Perhaps this could be an option for the user so that the 80% can see the menues as present.
This is NOT a critical improvement, but I see that the community is trying to get Drupal accepted by governments etc. I have served on US Federal Requirements Committees for Accessabilty (So called Section 526) which is current law. This alone would sustain a complaint. However, I doubt if there will be many who will make it in the next year of so. The real reason to fix this is that this is an vision area that affects about 20% of all people as they get into their 40s and 50s. it is called "low vision." And since most of the community is younger, there may well be an insensitivity to the problem. Think READING GLASSES etc. Corrective lenses distort the keystone effect and thos of us who spend many hours on computers each day, tend to Zoom the image rather than use the glasses.
There is also the solution of placing an administrative menu in the left column and using that, but it is really not very convenient compared to the present solution which is well thought out and quite efficient.
Comments
Would love some more information
Good afternoon leigen,
Thanks for this valuable post. I am hoping that you can identify the version of Drupal and the theme that you are using when experiencing these problems. Are you using any modules like the admin menu module?
Thanks,
Everett
Accessibility Consultant & Web Developer - Zufelt.ca
@ezufelt on Twitter | LinkedIn profile
Administration menu
Hi leigen,
If it's the Administration menu you're talking about I got the same problem on a high resolution monitor. My workaround was to set a minimum font size in my browser's settings (FF 3.6).
hth
Frank
Frank
My LinkedIn profile
CSS change?
I solve this small problem with changing 2 numbers in CSS file (/modules/admin_menu/admin_menu.css) on line 8 (font-size form 9 to 14) and line 15 (margin-top:20px to 30 px).
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8 #admin-menu { position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-family: "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; background: url(images/bkg.png) bottom left repeat-x #101010; width: 100%; text-align: left; }
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15 body.admin-menu { margin-top: 30px !important; }
No problems after that. Hope this helps to somebody.
br
T-zombix
Adminstration Menu
You are quite right that making the fonts smaller helps in that more of the drop- down menu fits on the screen.
However, that defeats the accessiblity where we want large enough fonts to read easily.
As I have thought about this problem, I realizse that there is a fundamental shortcoming in Drupal regardless of visability. It is this. As the number of modules and the content types grow, the menus get longer and longer. At some point they extend BELOW the end of the screen regardless of how small the fonts are. Smaller fonts just allow more items to be seen.
As I have been looking at other 508 compliant sites, I note that they (and some of the sites--not Drupal) allow the menu to go down as far as the end of the window--whatever size that is. When that point is reached, the additional menu items stack in another column to the left or right of the original one, Thus the menu takes all the visible vertical real estate, and then moves in horizontal blocks till all menu items are visible.
The reaon I gues that I have run into it is that in additon to having "weak vision" and needing larger fonts, we are developing a very complex and large Drupal site with many modules and a dozen content types.
There is a work around by adding a navigation menu on the left bar and going though Administration and a few page jumps will finally get there, but the penalty is much time lost.
As I indicated, this is not a creitical problem, but it should be fixed to put Drupal in a class with somne of the other truly accessable systems.
Suggestions to resolve the issue
@leigen
It does sound like you are talking about the administration menu, or administration menu drop down, contributed module. This group is definitely the right place to have discussions about these types of accessibility issues, and I personally appreciate your bringing this point to the attention of the community.
To get this issue resolved I would recommend filing a bug report, I specify bug and not feature request, against the module that you think is causing the problem. If you do file a bug please post a comment here so that anyone interested can get involved in helping with the solution.
Thanks again!
Accessibility Consultant & Web Developer - Zufelt.ca
@ezufelt on Twitter | LinkedIn profile
I'll note that in both
I'll note that in both Firefox and Safari, one can set a minimum font size (I use 18 points) and in IE one can tell the browser to ignore the font size set by the site. This often results in content overprinting other content, or content being cut off when sites use position:absolute or overflow:hidden. So it would be advisable for the adminstration interface to avoid such CSS, including in the menus.
I use float:left to allow menu items at http://www.sfmta.com/ to wrap as needed without going off the screen; however, I have not introduced rollover-activated drop-down menus so I'm not sure about the CSS needed for that.
We specifically chose not to have such drop-downs because some of us, myself included, find them distracting. I especially dislike having to navigate them in such a precise fashion to avoid activating the wrong sub-menu. I also find it distracting when I accidentally activate such a menu on the way to click on something else -- this typically happens when going from a browser control to a link within the page content; the drop-down winds up obscuring the link which is my actual target.
For this reason, it would be polite for rollover-activated drop-downs to have an on-off switch that would set a cookie as to whether I wanted it to be rollover-activated or click-activated (or deactivated, if click-activation is unfeasible).
Charles Belov
Webmaster
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA)
+1 to that. I enjoy having
+1 to that. I enjoy having admin-menu's drop downs, but for the navigation itself I hate it and haven't implemented foldable/drop-down menus on any sites. Course this is fairly subjective on my part.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
People love them or hate them; there's no in-between
Rollover-activated dropdown menus are one of those things people either love or hate. The way they are implemented and the response of the browser to them can make dramatic differences.
@Charles, I love the way they give me access to fairly deeply buried content quickly. Many users find them quite usable but would despair of clicking if you presented the same sequence in two to three navigation pages. In the case of admin menus, I personally have found them well behaved, but I don't have to zoom to large fonts and have not tested that.
On the other hand, I hate the way the item I want disappears before I can click it if I don't move the mouse in just the right path — and the way the view I don't want persists, blocking me from getting to the layer beneath, where the item I do want lies hidden. Sometimes it's so bad I just revert to tabbed navigation or use the site search.
And unfortunately the people who pay the bills often are greatly impressed by the benefits and immune to the shortcomings. Oh, well.
Returning to admin menus, was a bug report ever filed on this? If so, we should link to it from this discussion.