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RE: Same link text going to different places

for

From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Aug 7, 2002 3:24AM

Steve Vosloo wrote:

> - - questions about repeating the
> same link text for links that go to different places when the
> links are tabularized. The example I have in mind here is for campus
links for
> different Student Services at http://www.umassonline.net/services/

You have raised an important question, and a difficult one. But first a
simple note: the table on that page would probably be slightly more
accessible to sighted people, if the column "Campus Links" were split to
three columns according to its logical structure. (And, in principle, if the
recommended table accessibility features, like indicating header cells as
headers etc., were added too, it would make the table more accessible in
non-visual presentation as well.)

> I know this violates the WAI Priority 2 link text checkpoint;

That's somewhat debatable. Bobby, for example, says: "Do not use the same
link phrase more than once when the links point to different URLs." And
partly on this ground (plus partly on the undeniable ground of a violation
of a Priority 2 WAI requirement), Bobby reports that http://www.w3.org/
(sic) does not pass "AA" test. Note the wording: "This page does not yet
meet the requirements for Bobby AA Approved status. To be Bobby AA Approved,
a page must pass all of the Priority 1 and 2 accessibility checkpoints
established in W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0." So it does not
really claim that Bobby "AA" means W3C WAI "AA" - though this surely is the
common impression.

What Bobby refers to in this context is Checkpoint 13.1:
"Clearly identify the target of each link."
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/#tech-meaningful-links
But the explanations in that checkpoint do not present an explicit
requirement about different link texts. The associated HTML techniques
document however says:
"If more than one link on a page shares the same link text, all those links
should point to the same resource."
So is this a WAI requirement, or is it not? Is it "should" or "must"? If
it's just "should", why does Bobby report it as a violation and not an item
to be checked by the user? If it's "must", why does the recommendation
proceed by telling what to do when the requirement is not obeyed?

> One possibility is the title field.

Yes, in the sense that the HTML technique document suggests that, and Bobby
quotes this (without specifying the exact source), and W3C uses it - but
this apparently does not prevent Bobby from reporting an error. The W3C main
page has several links with the same text "News archive" but with different
href values (though differing in the fragment id only, so this might be seen
as a moot point); they have different title attributes, and Bobby still
complains.

> I suppose it depends on how much support the TITLE attribute has.

I would say that from the accessibility point of view, as well as by HTML
specifications more or less directly, the rule is: Never rely on TITLE
attributes. Use them to give additional information, which might help some
users as "advisory titles" (as the HTML spec puts it), but don't count on
it. In fact, the apparent idea, and the common implementation on browsers
that support TITLE, is that the advisory title is presented to the user
_upon request_. For example, when you view a page on IE, you have no direct
cue of what parts of the page have advisory titles, still less what the
titles are; you can just move the cursor around and see some "tooltips".
This might not be the optimal implementation, but it's a possible one, and a
common one.

So what about unique link texts? Surely they are desirable almost always.
For example, when a browser constructs a list of links (e.g., when I press
control-J on Opera), the list consists of link texts which can be accessed
e.g. in alphabetic order or by name. It is confusing if there are several
identical items with different meanings (i.e., pointing to different
locations).

But in case like yours, we might ask whether it is reasonable to require
that the link texts _must_ be different no matter what. I would say that you
wouldn't violate WAI requirements if the links are _identifiable_ as
distinct even if they have the same texts. But it is difficult to say what
is sufficient for identifiability. In any case, I would add markup that
makes the table more accessible and associates the data cells with their
headers; this would _in some sense_ identify the links in each cell as
distinct from other links with the same text.

--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi
Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399


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