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Re: Indicating a non-html link

for

From: Lori K. Brown
Date: Apr 29, 2003 3:56AM

I think stating file sizes is always a good idea, so that users on very
slow connections can be reassured that a given file is reasonable for them
to download. And while many users are unfamiliar w/ 'kb' and similar,
that's not a reason to omit it for the majority who are. Most
non-technical users are accustomed to ignoring that which is unfamiliar,
and this isn't going to hurt anyone.

And I think displaying the filename is helpful. If a user can see the
filename he/she is downloading, then it's easier for them to find the file
on their computer. You would be amazed how many users 'lose' downloaded
files because they are so bad at using the file manager and similar tools.

And it continues to puzzle and annoy me that the title attribute is so
poorly supported by screen readers. There might as well not even be such
an attribute if I can't rely on its support. It would be exceptionally
useful if it were consistently available. Then I could spend more time
working and less time reading this list. (charming and witty though you
all are.)

Lori K. Brown


> On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, oecih wrote:
>
>> I dont have a screenreader myself but as I read in
>> http://diveintoaccessibility.org/ a screenreader recognize the title
>> attribute, which works as an equivalent for an alt attribute on an
>> image link.
>
> There are many different screen readers and other software that is used to
> access Web pages in different ways. I don't think we should rely on the
> title attributes being presented, or even available, to users. The title
> attribute specifies, by definition, an advisory title. It could be
> characterized as "nice to know" information, not relied upon.
>
>> <a href="the_2003_annual_report.pdf"
>> title="some description about the file - PDF file (123 Kb)">The 2003
>> Annual Report</a>
>
> As I wrote earlier, I would put information like "(in PDF format)" after
> the link, or inside the link text (in cases where the same document is
> made available in different formats, so that the format indicator is
> needed to make the link texts different). Whether the size information is
> needed is debatable, and depends. Not all people even know what "Kb"
> means, and actually many people think that "b" means bits, not bytes.
> I would mention the file size only if it's exceptionally large; and
> 123 kilobytes isn't large for a PDF file.
>
> The title attribute could be used for other purposes, like giving an
> expanded version of the name of the linked document.
>
> --
> Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
>
>
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> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>


--
Lori K. Brown
User Interface Engineer
SiteScape, Inc.


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