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Re: Link purpose (WCAG)

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From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Jul 22, 2013 12:09PM

Hi Andrew,

just looking at PDF techniques for links I realise again how many technically incorrect pieces of information there are in the PDF techniques. In this specific case the PDF Technique "PDF13: Providing replacement text using the /Alt entry for links in PDF documents" is already getting things wrong in its title: replacement text, as defined in ISO 32000-1 14.9.4, is about the ActualText attribute, not the Alt attribute - which is talked about in the technique. And actually should not be used at all here, as far as I can tell, because the PDF standard as well as the PDF/UA standard explicitly make it clear that if an alternative description is to be provided for an annotation (which would include Link annotations) then it has to be done through the Contents entry of the annotation/Link. As a consequence the technique is inverting users to violate the PDF standard. And replacement text as well would be wring - because it is just that: it would replace the Link by some text. This implies that the link would disappear from the logical structure….

What is the right approach to get the PDF techniques fixed?

Olaf


Am 22 Jul 2013 um 18:57 schrieb Andrew Kirkpatrick < <EMAIL REMOVED> >:

> 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
>
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> http://twitter.com/awkawk
> http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
>
>
>