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Re: 1px gif link vs. hidden text link

for

From: Mark Rew
Date: Oct 21, 2002 12:43PM

I will answer one of your latter questions first. The alt text for a image
does not need to be visible on the screen for a screen reader to detect it,
and speak it for the screen reader user.

Now, back to an earlier question. There are several ways of implementing skip
navigation. The simplest is to provide an invisible link at the beginning of
the html body is an anchor performing a href to a named anchor. The alt
attribute can be as simple as "skip navigation." Look at the source for the
Webaim pages to see good examples of this.

Mark Rew

----- Original Message -----
From: "Freda Lockert" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 2:49 PM
Subject: 1px gif link vs. hidden text link


> Hello
>
> I'm working on my first, very small, accessibility project - web page
> versions of a print newsletter I produce for a small non-profit. I'm
> wondering which is the best way to provide a link to pass over a
> long contents list and go straight to the first article in the
> newsletter? I have the WeMedia speech browser, but not a screen
> reader (I'm a volunteer, budget=0).
>
> I listened to the newsletters in the WeMedia browser with a 1px gif
> link, and it read out the full link address and didn't give any
> information as to where the link went, even with the info in both the
> alt and title attributes, and the browser couldn't follow the link.
> Not good.
>
> I changed the 1px gif to a text link, hidden with a CSS class where
> the text size is 0px, and all the pseudo-classes match the page
> background. This works fine in WeMedia but how would screen readers
> handle this? For a screen reader to read text, does it have to be
> visible on screen, at a human-readable size, or simply present in the
> source?
>
> I'd rather keep the visual effects, with the 'accessibility' links
> hidden if possible, but will put them in plain text if it resolves
> problems with the technology.
>
> TIA.
>
> Freda
>
>
> --
> Freda's Views of France : http://www.cubica.co.uk/france/
>
>
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