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Citations and scientific publications: Invisible headings?

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From: Heim Manu (HK)
Date: May 12, 2022 11:46PM

Hi all,

Question about citation and publications. We are working on a new web compo=
nent which will be used to list scientific publications. There will be diff=
erent ways of visual presentation; the information remains the same, though=
.

Those publications are listed with all of their authors (which might be man=
y), with the name of the journal or magazine or book or collection they wer=
e published in, and with the direct links to two scientific resources where=
they can be found. Plus there is a button to open and close an abstract. I=
add some screenshots for those interested in it.

We are discussing if those parts (of each publication that is listed) shoul=
d receive an invisible heading in order to make it easier for screen reader=
users to jump from part to part, e.g. "authors", "journal", "DOI" (technic=
al, well-known term in the field), etc. You could argue, that this is a goo=
d thing because there is (at least) one visual style that discerns those pa=
rts one from another, so why should it not be possible for screen reader us=
ers. But there are also visual styles where all that text looks the same an=
d is arranged in one paragraph, the parts just separated by punctuation. Th=
erefore, some of us argue that this is only purely visual presentation and =
that if we include (invisible) headings, those might not be any true citati=
ons anymore. They would only add a cite tag around the title of the publica=
tion. The links are, of course, separate information, anyway.

Any opinions about that matter? I very much appreciate your expert feedback=
!
Thanks, Manu





--
ETH Z=FCrich, Hochschulkommunikation
Manu Heim, Co-Projektleiterin Barrierefreie Kommunikation
ethz.ch/digitale-barrierefreiheit<https://ethz.ch/digitale-barrierefreiheit=
>

Tel +41 44 633 30 66 | Mob +41 77 408 87 02
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