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RE: Separating links

for

From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: Mar 26, 2002 1:29PM

Warning... grumpy rant follows (sensitive readers should hit delete now)








<RANT>

>>These people are *blind*, not stupid.
and
>> 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.

HEY EVERYBODY - ACCESSIBILITY IS NOT JUST ABOUT BLIND USERS!!!!

Consider the following:

<.a href="here.html"><.img src="button1.gif" alt="Here"></a><.a
href="there.html"><.img src="button2.gif" alt="There"></a><.a
href="anywhere.html"><.img src="button3.gif" alt="Anywhere"></a>

Using a "user agent" which does not support images (or has images disabled
for whatever reason), you would get the following:

HereThereAnywhere

Looking and feeling as one big link instead of 3 separate links. Users with
cognitive disabilities may not grasp that there are 3 links there (heck you
probably wouldn't either at first glance).

And if the Alt Text was "shorter" (MeMyselfI) the links would be extremely
hard for users with mobility impairments to access.

Separating the links with non-link text then is crucial for these users. In
the case above, I would probably consider using an image map instead of the
3 separate button images, but that's not the point. The point is that when
creating your sites, we as developers must always think about the bigger
picture. Lately, the discussion threads I see seem to focus almost
exclusively on JAWS and IMB HPR, two fine products from companies who seem
to be serious about listening to feedback and correcting/improving their
software. But as developers we need to keep our eyes on the ball (the
bigger picture) and not get sidetracked by any particular "user agent".

>> 1. It seems to me that, the way the most recent versions of HPR
>> and JAWS treat these situations, hearing "vertical bar" or some
>> such in between links is just a nuisance: I can't see (or hear)
>> that it serves any useful purpose whatever. I am open to being
>> convinced otherwise, however.

How about because taking a stance like that is the 2002 equivalent of the
"Best Viewed in <browser of choice>" nonsense of the 90's? I would suggest
that backward compatibility and an acknowledgement that there are more than
two adaptive technology solutions available to the end user is required.
The W3C lists over 35 different "user agents (browsers)" created for or
include enhancements for the disabled at:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing

Just because the most recent versions of these software tools no longer
exhibit "problems" to the multitude of new sighted users who have recently
installed these softwares for "testing purposes" does not remove the fact
that before Accessibility became the hot topic it is today, disabled users
(many of whom may be on fixed or restricted budgets) were using earlier
versions of the software minus the improved behaviour. An associate of mine
has been using JAWS 3.x for some time now (daily!)... he hopes to get Jaws 4
with his new computer later this year, but he's saving his scheckles like
everybody else does; he doesn't have the luxury of writing it off as a
business expense. I would suspect that the large majority of the intended
audience are in a similar situation.

</RANT>

JF






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