WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: styling phone links

for

From: Jeremy Echols
Date: Oct 12, 2017 9:57AM

I feel like it's important to consider the already-obsolete nature of what is being done here. As Patrick has pointed out, there are cases on desktops when users will be confused (tabbing through links, something blind users may do, and something sighted users with motor control issues may do). And (also pointed out by Patrick), there are cases where it's useful to have "tel" links even when it's not a phone.

The main purpose of media queries is to make sure you get content to users in a way that works for a given device. Using these as a way to assume capabilities which aren't part of the @media type/feature sets will cause problems you may not consider (keyboard-only users being confused in this case) and will undoubtedly require fixes down the road as screen sizes change, and the distinction between tablet / desktop / phone continues to blur.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2017 5:33 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] styling phone links

Related to this, also worth noting: on an iPad (without any SIM) clicking on a tel: link will open a context menu to send a message, add to contacts, copy. Android tablets also trigger an add to contacts dialog. And these devices will have a larger nominal viewport than a "phone" device.

P
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Patrick H. Lauke

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