Styling the Vertical - Achieving Parity

Note : This article is one of a series demonstrating building a React navigational component from scratch while considering accessibility through the process. The articles are accompanied by a GitHub repository with releases tied to one or more articles; each builds on the previous one until a fully implemented navigation component is complete. Each release and its associated tag contain fully runnable code for the article. The code discussed in this article is available in the release. and may be downloaded at release 0.9.0 . A page showcasing these base components may be run locally through this release. While code examples are written in JavaScript for brevity, all actual code is written in Typescript and targets React 19.x, all while using vanilla CSS. Examples use Next.js v16.x, which is not required to run the navigation component.] The design requirements for this release are available . -— Content Links Introduction Layout Appearance <nav / > Generic Styling Reimagining Focus and Hover Achieving Parity aria-current Refinements Summary Introduction With only one more release coming up and the horizontal layout styling complete, now is the time to focus on completing vertical layout styling. Most of the layout itself was completed in an earlier release and described in the article Laying it all out on the vertical . When styling a component, care must be taken to ensure parity with the information provided by screen readers through some aria attributes. For instance, a navigation component must set the aria-current="page" attribute on a link whose href points to the current page. In the example being shown, the link in question is the "by Era" link, under Find Your Next Story and Tales. ) While screen reader users hear which button or link is the item currently capturing focus, styling is needed to achieve the same for screen users. Visual styling is necessary to guarantee that visual and auditory/tactile users have the same information. Layout @layer system-c