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Re: underline on links, from the blind's perspective

for

From: Bevi Chagnon
Date: May 24, 2012 2:28AM

Julius wrote: "Generally, it is a good accessibility practice to have an
underline on
each link."

Julius, underlined links are more of a "convention," which means most
sighted users are expecting that links will be underlined so it's good
practice to underline links if you want most users to quickly see and
identify links.

But as Jodie said below, underlining or any other visual formatting of links
(like blue) is not made known to screen reader users. Their tools tell them
that it's a link, not that it's underlined.

The underlining, however, might be helpful to low-vision users of screen
readers and other A.T. users, just as it would for full-vision users.
-
Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
PubCom - Trainers, consultants, designers, and developers
Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and Federal Section 508
- * It's our 30th Year! *

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Hoger, Jodie
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 11:25 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] underline on links, from the blind's perspective

Hi there. I am new to the list and have been watching closely. I am not
techy in the slightest - smile but am totally blind and use a screen reader
(window eyes by gw micro) and am passionate about universal design. From my
perspective, I usually tab from link to link or use the find feature for
links. Either way, I do not get any feedback that a link is underlined and
in fact, until this discussion, was not aware that links were. I would
imagine for people with vision impairments, learning difficulties and anyone
else I suppose that the common practice of an underline would assist in the
identification of the link.
For me though, it makes no difference.
I hope this feedback is useful.
Best wishes,
Jo

Jodie Hoger
Teacher Consultant (vision), Equity Services TAFE NSW - Illawarra Institute,
Building A, 60 Bienda St, Bomaderry, NSW, 2541 VOIP 54865| P 02 4421 9865| M
0437 035 042| F 02 4421 9804| E <EMAIL REMOVED> |
www.illawarra.tafensw.edu.au




-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Julius
Charles Serrano
Sent: Thursday, 24 May 2012 12:40 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] underline on links, from the blind's perspective

Hi everyone.

Generally, it is a good accessibility practice to have an underline on
each link.

Regarding this matter, I wanna ask, particularly the accessibility
advocates here who are blind, is there a way to verify (non-visually)
that the links on a page are indeed underlined?

I think for sighted accessibility advocates, this is not a problem. I
just wanna know if there is a way for blind advocates to verify that
links are underlined. Perhaps we can do this by looking at the code? Any

ideas?

I think being able to verify this is necessary because sometimes web
developers tend to remove the underlines for whatever reason.

Thanks everyone.

Julius



--
Julius Charles Serrano
Accessibility Specialist
Catalyst IT Ltd
http://www.catalyst.net.nz
Mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Phone: +64 (4) 803-2436

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