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Re: Identifying link targets

for

From: Marissa Polsky
Date: Sep 21, 2004 11:30AM


Following the same idea, if the client has some flexibility in using the
CMS, they can add another variable, and call it something like
"keyword." Then, if you don't want to necessarily repeat the story title
again in the link, you can have something like:

Scientists discover new miracle cure (title)

short text blah blah blah blah blah


Link: Read more about the miracle cure (and "the miracle cure" could be
the keyword).

Just a thought.



Marissa Polsky Goldsmith
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American Councils for International Education:
ACTR/ACCELS
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>>> <EMAIL REMOVED> 9/21/2004 1:07:00 PM >>>

I recently moved from the Read More to using the linked titles on one
of the sites I maintain. However, I'd also consider using the story
title in the link text, saying 'continue reading Story Title' after the
story excerpt. That way you don't have to worry about whether a screen
reader reads the link title or not.
-Kevin Hall

-----Original Message-----
From: martin [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 12:53 PM
To: "WebAIM Discussion List"
Subject: [WebAIM] Identifying link targets



<EMAIL REMOVED> pointed out a problem with a website we'd developed
(thanks
Mary):


The link "Read More" appears multiple times on a page. When a person
with a
screen reader brings up the list of links, the links will be out of
context,
and so the user can't tell where a "Read More" link will go. Instead
of
"Read More" you can link the text within the sentence or phrase.


This is a tricky one that we come across on lots of sites that are
driven
from a CMS.

In the example cited we have body copy followed by a 'Read more' link,
thus:

The 11th Duke of Devonshire's memoir, 'Accidents of Fortune' is now on
sale
Read more

Now, for the purposes of this discussion, let's say this site is CMS
driven
and we're pulling story summaries from a database and linking to the
full
stories.
Of course it IS possible to embed a link within the story summary, but
in
practical terms this is relatively complex (and therefore expensive) to
do.
It's also useful for users to be able to scan through a summary and
click on
a following link. Hence 'Read more'.

We could include a story headline which would become the link eg.

Memoir hits the shelves (linked)
The 11th Duke of Devonshire's memoir, 'Accidents of Fortune' is now on
sale

However, this is less nice in that the user's flow is disrupted; they
need
to backtrack to find the link. And not all information types lend
themselves
to this solution.

One solution that we have implemented, with the agreement of RNIB, is
to
include a link description which uniquely identifies the link eg.

Explanation of the law regarding minimum hourly rates paid to
workers
<a href="some url" title="Order a copy of 'A general guide to Driver
Licensing' - http://www.dvla.gov.uk/contact/local_offices.htm - Opens
in a
new window" >A general guide to Driver Licensing

(I've simplified the code here)

This seems a good compromise but we're aware that it's not quite 100%
foolproof in that some screen reader users may have turned off link
descriptions.

I wondered if anyone had any real-life examples of how they'd addressed
this
issue ?

Thanks in advance.

Martin

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