WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Current best practice/standard/guideline for linking to non-html files?

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Oct 20, 2014 6:14PM

> We are in the midst of a redesign and it has been suggested that identifying document types is no longer needed either for accessibility or usability. I disagree, but would like to know your thoughts on this.

I think it's still important but I don't consider it a conformance failure when it's not done. The argument can be made that all people are equally at a disadvantage because the link type is ambiguous to all.

Benefits for indicating the type apply to people with motor, cognitive, and visual impairments. Traversing a link that is not the intended link can have more serious consequences for people with disabilities because they have to return to where they were. An argument can also be made from mobile where large documents can take a long time to download or cause the user to incur fees for data usage.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Angela French
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 8:08 PM
To: WebAim Forum ( <EMAIL REMOVED> )
Subject: [WebAIM] Current best practice/standard/guideline for linking to non-html files?

Hello,
In our current website we identify links to non-html documents with a document type icon and include the icon in the hyper-texted link label. Here is an example page<http://www.sbctc.edu/college/_g-abe_cbsmeetinginfo.aspx>;.

We are in the midst of a redesign and it has been suggested that identifying document types is no longer needed either for accessibility or usability. I disagree, but would like to know your thoughts on this.

Thank you,

Angela French
Internet Specialist
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com>;
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu>;