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Re: Link labels and APA citations

for

From: John Foliot
Date: Oct 19, 2014 12:26PM

Bevi Chagnon | PubCom wrote:
>
> This thread brings up a much larger issue:
> Why has the accessibility community developed standards that are in
> direct conflict with professional publishing requirements that have
> been in place for 100+ years?

Perhaps because those 100+ year old guidelines were not written for digital
media? That when these "style" guides were written, they did not account for
concepts such as "hyperlinks" and "screen readers"? That the entire notion
of a document that can "zoom you off" to another completely different
document with a click of a mouse-button or Enter key is completely foreign
to "conventional" (i.e. dead-tree) publishing?


>
> How likely is it that professional writers and editors, both those in
> the SMT (science medical technical) fields and conventional publishing,
> will go against their industry standards and switch to whatever WCAG
> says?
>
> Wouldn't it be more effective for users if WAI/WCAG would first learn
> the professional publishing standards, and then meld with the industry
> rather than fight it?

I don't disagree that input from the more traditional content publishing
establishment would be welcome, but the thing of it is, they need to come to
the new medium as much as the new medium needs to reach out to them.

There are bright spots already: IDPF (International Digital Publishing
Forum) and the E-Pub initiative are already working with the W3C (leveraging
HTML5) to ensure that digital publishing and accessibility are not in
conflict with each other. As a fairly active member at the W3C, we have (for
example) an open action item/discussion around how to best handle Footnotes.
David MacDonald (CanAdapt) and I are preparing an investigation, and it will
be a topic of discussion at the up-coming W3C Face-to-Face meeting later
this month. (If anyone has any feedback or comments they'd like to share on
that topic, ping David or I directly or start a new thread here or over at
the W3C).


>
> Editorial style guides have been around for 100+ years. Whether it's
> Chicago (The Chicago Manual of Style) or AP (Associated Press) or NLM
> (National Library of Medicine-PubMed Central) or Oxford/Harts (Oxford
> Guide to Style), these worldwide style standards are the norm of
> publishing for US, British, and worldwide scientific material.

This is correct, and yet even these guides contradict each other: anyone
here want to re-open the Oxford comma debate? There is also an expression
that suggests "adapt or die", and just as dictionaries and encyclopedias
(does anyone reference a dead-tree encyclopedias anymore, or does everyone
just use Wikipedia?) need to stay up-to-date, so too these decades old
"style guides". I personally reject the idea that we must adapt to their old
ways - perhaps their old ways need to adapt to the new realities.


> The APA
> style manual (American Psychological Association) is just one of the
> smaller style guides developed for their specific niche of science and
> now used throughout academia. Every publisher has an internal style
> guide...even my small publishing firm has one.

Which begs the question: has your internal style guide consulted WCAG when
it comes to digital publishing and hyperlinks (etc.)? If not, why not? A
quick check at the APA Style guide extract published at Purdue University
(https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/) renders this gem:

"Your essay should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper
(8.5" x 11") with 1" margins on all sides. You should use a clear font that
is highly readable. APA recommends using 12 pt. Times New Roman font."

(Surprisingly - or not - when it comes to digitally publishing the "essay",
all of the requirements in the first sentence can be met with CSS today,
including the ability to apply both 'screen' and 'print' CSS to the
semantically marked up content. "You should" use a clear font is not an
insistence, but rather a strong recommendation, and 12pt Times New Roman on
most viewport screens today would be too small for many, many users,
especially given the fact that the default font size for all browsers today
is 16pt - although many CSS reset sheets will knock that down to 14pt)


>
> Millions of documents are produced daily to these standards, yet WCAG
> ignores them and says, essentially, "do it our way or you'll be out of
> compliance."
>
> Doesn't make much sense to me, nor to my editors who are trying to find
> ways to do their job and meet accessibility requirements.

Like many "accessibility" problems, half the battle is in understanding the
problem, and finding a workable solution. Remember, WCAG 2 was written to
be as non-prescriptive as possible: it does not present a shopping list of
"must do's", but rather outlines the requirement(s) in the context of
understanding the need, then offers a collection of techniques that have
been demonstrated to address the problem, but (and here's the big BUT),
leaves open the door for other techniques or implementations.

WCAG 2 was never intended to be used as a bully-stick ("do this or else you
FAIL compliance") - no, it was written to provide the best guidance and
understanding possible, so that content authors and editors can Do The Right
Thing. Is it perfect? Probably not. But then it is up to us, the community,
to help make it better. Digital accessibility is not something handed down
from the mountain, no it is us the community working to make things better
for all users. If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the
problem (IMHO).


>
> If we're trying to make content more accessible, why aren't we working
> with the established communication industries (like academic
> publishing) rather than dictating rules that don't make sense to them?

Well, as noted, the W3C is trying. But how many of these style-guide
'owners' have approached the W3C with an open hand and an offer to work
together? Why should the accessibility community always go chasing after the
establishment? Why not for a change they come visit us? (Just saying...)


*****
(later) Bevi Chagnon | PubCom wrote:
>
> 3) affects everyone who publishes, why not work with them to create a
> better solution than the current myopic, narrow-minded requirement
> currently in WCAG?

Wow, look who's calling the kettle black. "Do it the traditional publishing
way, or it's wrong"? That seems pretty myopic and narrow-minded to me as
well.


>
> A better solution would have them keep their current, established
> methods for publishing, and probably add something to WCAG to make
> links more understandable and navigable for AT users...without changing
> established publishing methods.

I am curious now - what exactly do you see as the problem?


>
> The current WCAG standard for "meaningful text" for hyperlinks is
> meaningful only to those who are blind or have low vision and invoke
> keyboard shortcuts to voice all the links on a page.

It does? Let's dissect that assertion a bit further:

Guideline 1.3 (Adaptable) states: "Create content that can be presented in
different ways (for example simpler layout) without losing information or
structure." (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#content-structure-separation)

So right there, it leaves open, in fact almost "insists", that content can
be presented in different ways. So any claim that WCAG states "you must
present meaningful text links *this* one particular way", is rendered false
by this (A) requirement.


Next, there is 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context): "The purpose of each link
can be determined from the link text alone or from the link text together
with its programmatically determined link context, except where the purpose
of the link would be ambiguous to users in general." (Level A)
(http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#navigation-mechanisms)

The key to interpreting that statement (to me) is the phrase "...or from the
link text together with its _programmatically_determined_ link context...",
so I hardly think WCAG is categorically stating that URL's must always be
written out as full URL's, although I will suggest that a strategy such as
that would also benefit sighted users - with or without cognitive
disabilities - and would benefit those attempting to do research, and/or
simply want to (dead-tree) print out the document in question. Surely you
cannot believe <a href="">Click Here</a> is a better solution?

(I'll note here as well that in "traditional" print scholarly works, when
you reference another print source, you should also note the ISBN number or
equivalent, so I ask how is referencing a URL any different?)

But don't just take my interpretation and word for it, let's look at
Understanding SC 2.4.4
(http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-refs.html),
where it states:

"The intent of this Success Criterion is to help users understand
the purpose of each link so they can decide whether they want to follow the
link. Whenever possible, provide link text that identifies the purpose of
the link without needing additional context. [JF notes: the modifier here is
"Whenever possible"]
Assistive technology has the ability to provide users with a list of
links that are on the Web page. Link text that is as meaningful as possible
will aid users who want to choose from this list of links. Meaningful link
text also helps those who wish to tab from link to link. Meaningful links
help users choose which links to follow without requiring complicated
strategies to understand the page. [JF notes: there's your cognition issues,
which often do not require a specific AT tool to address. Derek Featherstone
also mentions this issue with regard to speech-to-text AT in the following
video: http://john.foliot.ca/featherstone_video]

The text of, or associated with, the link is intended to describe
the purpose of the link. In cases where the link takes one to a document or
a web application, the name of the document or web application would be
sufficient to describe the purpose of the link [JF notes: it says it right
here: you do NOT have to render the full URL on screen to meet this Success
Criteria]
...(which is to take you to the document or web application). Note
that it is not required to use the name of the document or web application;
other things may also describe the purpose of the link. [JF notes: it says
it right there, in black and white at the W3C, "... it is not required to
use the name of the document or web application..."]

Finally, of interest to both authors and editors is Guideline 3.1 Readable:
"Make text content readable and understandable." Curiously, this Guideline
says *nothing* about link text, but instead simply infers that clear and
explicit is preferable over vague and obtuse, a point which I believe most
editors already understand quite clearly.

Based upon that, I am having a hard time understanding why you believe that
WCAG has 'handcuffed' editors who must also apply other 'requirements' (such
as publishing style guides) to their output. WCAG lays out the
requirement(s), provides the justification and explanation
(http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms.html) and
then leaves open the idea that there are multiple ways of meeting the
requirement, right down to providing multiple examples*!
(http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/#qr-navigation-mechanisms-refs)

(* one example, which I used here, was to use a URL shortner for when URLs
appear to be nothing but a long string of alphabet soup. The URL shortner
also allowed me to change the "text" to something more meaningful, and is I
believe fully compliant with all WCAG requirements.)


> Everyone else is
> disadvantaged, including the fully sighted audience and the publisher,
> because the document now must use convoluted language to meet WCAG.

Well, that is what you claim, but can you provide us with an actual use-case
where WCAG's "convoluted language" is actually an impediment?

Or perhaps (I will suggest) the real problem is that many editors and
authors are more interested in a "we must do this, we cannot do that" black
and white RULE, rather than spend the time thinking about what the
requirement actually asks for (and why), and then taking the additional time
to come up with a strategy that addresses the "style" requirements in tandem
with the accessibility requirements. I will suggest that today they do not
have to be at odds with each other.

JF
------------------------------
John Foliot
Web Accessibility Specialist
W3C Invited Expert - Accessibility
Co-Founder, Open Web Camp