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RE: Separating links

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Mar 24, 2002 11:36PM

JAWS: When JAWS reads links, it prefaces the text with the work "link".
For example, if the link text says "products", JAWS will say "link
products". For the most part, there is no confusion here. There may be
confusion, however, with the text following the link. For example, if
the text right after the products link says "All around the world,
people are wondering about...", then the user may not know whether the
link is "products" or "products all around the world".

Home Page Reader: The default mode in Home Page Reader is to change the
type of voice. A male-sounding voice reads the plain text and a
female-sounding voice reads links. This is a more direct example of the
question you asked. In Home Page Reader, two adjacent links will be read
consecutively without a distinguishing sound in between them. For
example, two links "products" and "help" might be misunderstood to be
one links "products help". However, there are options in Home Page
Reader that allow the user to differentiate between links. HPR can be
set to play a sound (e.g. a chime) or say a word (e.g. "link") before
the link. There are ways of configuring the program so that there is no
confusion, but the default settings permit this kind of confusion.

Now you may be wondering what to do about this issue. In a list of
links, you can place a character such as a vertical bar ( | ) in between
links. You could also place periods, hyphens, or any other character
there, but vertical bars are more common. Placing a line break ( <br> )
or a new paragraph ( <p> ) does not meet the guideline because there are
no printable characters in between links that way.

And another important question: Is it necessary to do this nowadays? In
lists of links I think it is usually a good idea, but perhaps not as
necessary as it once may have been. I would personally put this
guideline in the "recommended" category, but not necessarily in the
"required" category, because modern screen readers have the potential to
handle links well, even if they are not set up to do so in the default
configuration.

P.S. Bulleted lists are often read as if there is no break between list
items, which can be confusing in Home Page Reader's default
configuration (though, again, this can be modified). I really wish that
screen readers read lists better, but they don't. They could say
"bullet", "list item" or something, but they don't (in the default
configuration). I personally would not recommend putting vertical bars
or other characters at the end of bulleted list items--though it may
help some screen reader users--because that seems to me to be going a
bit too far. Still, I bring it up because that is one situation in which
screen readers could be of more help to the user, but they aren't. It's
a situation to at least be aware of.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu