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Re: Alternative to the Title attribute in Links

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Aug 26, 2017 4:48PM

Your use of the title attribute is exactly per spec (this is the type
of additional info the title attribute is supposed to communicate).
The fact that browsers and assistive technologies fail to support it
keeps baffling me, and I find it very questionable for authors to have
to avoid using an attribute that has been around almost as long as the
HTML language itself because no one has bothered to support it.
The onus is on browsers and a.t. to implement accessible support for
the title attribute (at least on focusable elements), or on W3C to
drop the title attribute from the HTmL spec.
That being said, if the information you are communicating through the
title attribute was essential to understanding the link I would advise
to put that text int he link itself. In your situation I think it is
fine.
The active class worries me. If this indicates the link is the active
link in a list of links it needs aria-current="true" to communicate
same to assistive technology users.



On 8/26/17, JP Jamous < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Sarah,
>
> Why not just make the link label what you want it to announce? I am unsure
> why you wish to complicate your design.
>
> <a
> href="/en/home?order=field_data_holding&amp;sort=asc"
> class="active">Data Holding">
> sort by Data Holding
> </a>
> 1. If you are adding a background image to your link through CSS, I would
> fail that because you will be asking for lots of problems.
> Title attribute only works with IE and not always guaranteed to work.
> Tooltips are difficult for low vision users to see.
>
>