WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: why don't accessibility checkers find non-distinguishable links?

for

From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Dec 2, 2016 9:57AM

Jon Brundage wrote:

>
> So this would be acceptable?

For screen reader users who are navigating by links, this presentation is perhaps (at most) slightly better:

<href>2015 documents privacy</href>
<href>2015 documents security</href>
<href>2016 documents privacy</href>
<href>2016 documents security</href>

... but this presentation is notably worse for everyone else (including for screen reader users reading through the page). So which should you favor? I can't answer that, but I'm not really comfortable with an accessibility technique that decreases usability for more users than it benefits.

Jared

I think this is the reason that having links make sense out of context is a WCAG AAA requirement rather than a AA. As with many if not most of the AAA requirements there is a significant danger of doing more harm than good and developers must carefully consider the implications before implementing them. In the example above perhaps the real problem is information architecture.

What would be wrong with the following links?

<href>Privacy Documents</href>
<href>Security Documents</href>
<href>Privacy and Security Document Archives</href>