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Re: Generic Links

for

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Nov 1, 2012 8:55AM

Screen readers such as JAWS , Win-Eyes, VO do allow one to read
current sentence / para without requiring one to move focus away from
the link.
David ... also refer to my previous comments in this thread.
Also using off-screen text is more code / more work in this case which
can be avoided. I do not recommend it in this context. Use the AT's
feature to get the context. This applies to regular reading of the
page (sufficient for WCAG AA) and not to a links-list ... which is an
additional feature of the AT.
Sailesh

On 10/31/12, David Ashleydale < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Ryan,
> I always thought that sentence you quoted was kind of an outlier and didn't
> really make sense to me when paired with the sentence right before it, "If
> the context for the link is not in the same sentence, paragraph, list item,
> or table cell as the link, then the user will not be able to find out where
> the link is going with any ease. If the user must leave the link to search
> for the context, the context is not programmatically determined link
> context and this failure condition occurs."
>
> To me, the first sentence says that having a "click here" link in the
> middle of a sentence is fine because of the context provided by the
> sentence, but then the second sentence kind of negates that by saying you
> shouldn't have to leave the link to figure out what it's for. So I read the
> second sentence as, "If the user must leave the link to search for the
> context (except in the cases just listed),..."
>
> After all 2.4.4 does state, "The purpose of each
> link<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#linkpurposedef>; can
> be determined from the link text alone or from the link text together with
> its programmatically determined link
> context<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#pdlinkcontextdef>;..."
> So the link text alone doesn't have to work on its own in order to satisfy
> this criteria.
>
> But I agree they could have worded that second sentence better.
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Ryan E. Benson
> < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:
>
>> > I think the impact of such links is a bit overstated. Even WCAG 2.0
>> > allows such links except at Level AAA. At Level AA, "more" and "click
>> > here", etc. are allowed so long as the link makes sense in its
>> > context, which based on WCAG's definition of this makes it nearly
>> > impossible to fail. And in the cases where it would fail the context
>> > requirement, it would almost certainly still pass because links that
>> > are ambiguous to everyone are excluded.
>>
>> I am not sure about anybody else, but this doesn't set well with me.
>> While what Jared said is essentially coming from WCAG, I think it is a
>> complete contradiction on itself. On F36, which outlines the failures
>> of 2.4.4, (http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20120103/F63)
>> it says "If the user must leave the link to search for the context,
>> the context is not programmatically determined link context and this
>> failure condition occurs." I read this as if I am browsing a page via
>> just hitting tab (or pulling up a link list), versus by arrowing, I
>> should be able to know what every link does without reading the
>> sentence again. If my sentence was "click here for more details about
>> WCAG", and click here was the linking words, I would have to leave the
>> link to figure out where it went.
>>
>> --
>> Ryan E. Benson
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> > On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 11:02 AM, David Ashleydale wrote:
>> >
>> >> I'm trying to find a way to get rid of a generic "More" link on my
>> >> site
>> >
>> > I think the impact of such links is a bit overstated. Even WCAG 2.0
>> > allows such links except at Level AAA. At Level AA, "more" and "click
>> > here", etc. are allowed so long as the link makes sense in its
>> > context, which based on WCAG's definition of this makes it nearly
>> > impossible to fail. And in the cases where it would fail the context
>> > requirement, it would almost certainly still pass because links that
>> > are ambiguous to everyone are excluded.
>> >
>> > In short, I wouldn't worry a lot about "More" links.
>> >
>> >> My first stab at getting rid of the More link was to just make the
>> >> "Leadership and Governance" heading into a link to the "Leadership and
>> >> Governance" page.
>> >
>> > I think this is a great approach. It does have a minor disadvantage of
>> > providing an extra link that goes to the same location as the "More"
>> > link, but this is outweighed by the benefits of the informative link.
>> >
>> >> So my next attempt was putting "More: Leadership and Governance" at
>> >> the
>> >> bottom of the layer, with "Leadership and Governance" as a link and
>> >> the
>> >> word "More" just as plain text.
>> >
>> > One approach may be to make "More: Leadership and Governance" the
>> > link, but visually hide the ": Leadership and Governance" text so it
>> > is only read by screen readers.
>> >
>> >> I'm almost coming to the conclusion that there is actually a case for
>> >> keeping the link as just "More" (as along as its context
>> >> can be programmatically determined, which I can do).
>> >
>> > If the link makes sense and there's a good case for keeping it, why
>> > fight a battle to get rid of it simply for the sake of compliance?
>> >
>> > Jared
>> > >> > >> > >> >> >> >>
> > > >