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Re: Link purpose (WCAG)

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Jul 22, 2013 10:57AM

What JAWS does do, at least when I hit Ins+T (JAWSKEY+T) is read the title of the page and then it reads the immediate heading preceding the current location for the user.

As Birkir points out, there are other ways to address this success criteria also.

I will point out that there is nothing that states that the user must never need to move their focus from the link. The Understanding document (which is non-normative) says that the user _should_ be able to determine this without moving their focus from the link, and the JAWS keystroke helps make this possible if the context is available via the preceding heading, but it can also be met via other means such as when words in the sentence containing the link provide the context. A screen reader user who tabs to a link that doesn't make immediate sense may need to arrow up and down to read the line where the link is found to see if it makes sense. From conversations and observations of assistive technology users, this seems reasonable (speak up if you disagree!). To get the link itself to provide all of the context in the link text, SC 2.4.9 (http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-link.html) is the triple A criteria that applies.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

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