Differences in APG navigation and information architecture when compared to WAI minimal template

[shawna-slh]

The WAI “minimal header” design is optimized for repeat users, many of whom use these resources frequently. The first link in the navigation is to the list of contents in the resource. It is the page most users will use, most of the time. For example: All Supplemental Guidance

A few observations:

• The current draft prototype has no way to get a list of all of the content.
• From Sept usability testing: “When asked to find some examples of Landmark roles, people would generally look under fundamentals last.”
• From Sept usability testing: “Almost half of the participants considered we should re-think the order of the navigation elements and have Fundamentals come first. Right after Home.” Thoughts from Shawn: Yet, I think users use the “Design Patterns and Widgets” more frequently. Maybe the user experience can be improved by 1. changing the category name “fundamentals”, and 2. putting more clear info in the first page.
• A frequent APG user from EOWG suggest that the first page include the principles from section 2 of the TR doc – because that is important for all users to know and not all know it. (and he frequently points people to it)
• The first link in the navigation of the main WAI website is “Accessibility Fundamentals”. Thus, “Fundamentals” APG navigation would be confusing to some users.

A straw proposal for the first page:

• First section is Read this First. It is collapsible, and that is persistent. It is expanded by default.
• List of all content, with expand-collapse for each section and for all, and choice is persistent. (Note: then could probably do without the list view option for the cards, as noted in provide list alternative to cards #29)
• Summary at the top with 1-2 sentences and a link to the About page

What would be the page title? Maybe h1: “All ARIA Authoring Guidance” (which would relate to “Supplemental Guidance”) and nav just “All”.

[shawna-slh]

I found very useful how Matt described first pages for resources like this — either:

• "use me" -- provides important functionality easy to get to and use
• "book cover" -- advertises the resource and encourages people to explore more

For the other resources (Understanding WCAG, WCAG Techniques, Test Rules, Supplemental Guidance):

• "use me" is the first link in the navigation, which provides an easy way to see all the content, and, for example, use find-in-page (which is especially important since we don't have good search for a while)
• "book cover" is the About page linked from the header (although not nearly as nicely designed as the middle part of the current APG first page!) We point to that page for people to get an intro to the resource. We expect most to read (or skim) it once, then likely not again.

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As I've said, APG needs to decide how it wants to be consistent with it's peer resources, and how it wants to be different from peer resources.