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Identifying link targets

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From: Martin Godfrey
Date: Sep 21, 2004 10:51AM


<EMAIL REMOVED> pointed out a problem with a website we'd developed (thanks
Mary):


The link "Read More" appears multiple times on a page. When a person with a
screen reader brings up the list of links, the links will be out of context,
and so the user can't tell where a "Read More" link will go. Instead of
"Read More" you can link the text within the sentence or phrase.


This is a tricky one that we come across on lots of sites that are driven
from a CMS.

In the example cited we have body copy followed by a 'Read more' link, thus:

The 11th Duke of Devonshire's memoir, 'Accidents of Fortune' is now on sale
Read more

Now, for the purposes of this discussion, let's say this site is CMS driven
and we're pulling story summaries from a database and linking to the full
stories.
Of course it IS possible to embed a link within the story summary, but in
practical terms this is relatively complex (and therefore expensive) to do.
It's also useful for users to be able to scan through a summary and click on
a following link. Hence 'Read more'.

We could include a story headline which would become the link eg.

Memoir hits the shelves (linked)
The 11th Duke of Devonshire's memoir, 'Accidents of Fortune' is now on sale

However, this is less nice in that the user's flow is disrupted; they need
to backtrack to find the link. And not all information types lend themselves
to this solution.

One solution that we have implemented, with the agreement of RNIB, is to
include a link description which uniquely identifies the link eg.

Explanation of the law regarding minimum hourly rates paid to workers
<a href="some url" title="Order a copy of 'A general guide to Driver
Licensing' - http://www.dvla.gov.uk/contact/local_offices.htm - Opens in a
new window" >A general guide to Driver Licensing

(I've simplified the code here)

This seems a good compromise but we're aware that it's not quite 100%
foolproof in that some screen reader users may have turned off link
descriptions.

I wondered if anyone had any real-life examples of how they'd addressed this
issue ?

Thanks in advance.

Martin

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Martin Godfrey
Project Manager

NYKRIS, 148 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London UK, EC2A 3AT
T: +44 [0]20 7749 9349
D: +44 [0]20 7749 9334
F: +44 [0]20 7729 8188
E: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.nykris.com

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