WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Identifying link targets

for

From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Sep 22, 2004 3:46AM



On Sep 21, 2004, at 9:53 AM, martin wrote:
> 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.

Then that's their choice. And they don't get the link descriptions.

Really, you don't have to compensate when people have access to
accessibility-
related information and don't choose to read/hear it.

The above method described is okay. It would also be okay if you wrote
"Read more" with a title on it.

I also maintain that if you just have "Read more", with NOTHING else,
you're not violating some cardinal sin.

Web pages are NOT meant to be read as a list of links. They are
structured
documents, and treating them as if they are not and structure does not
matter is as wrong as if you took all the elements and read them
in order. In fact, doing that makes more sense than reading tags.

This kind of thinking is dangerous to accessibility because it leads to
a devaluation of the structured aspects of HTML marked up text.

--Kynn

> --
Kynn Bartlett http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com
Author, CSS in 24 Hours http://cssin24hours.com
Columnist, _The Californian_ http://kynn.com/column
AIM: NextOfKynn | Cell: (951) 202-9872 | Office: (951) 245-4020