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Re: Identifying link targets

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Sep 21, 2004 12:49PM

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004, darrel.austin wrote:

> The ideal solution, IMHO, is to use TITLE attributes for the links to
> uniquely define them.

No, the TITLE attribute should be regarded only as an optional hint,
since this is how it has effectively been defined and implemented.
The correct solution is to different link texts for links pointing to
different resources, as required even by accessibility guidelines.

> BUT, I'm not sure if screen readers, by default, read
> TITLE attributes.

They may, or they may not. If they do, consider it as a flaw.
The _adequate_ implementation is to make the TITLE attribute's value
available upon the user's request (as most graphic browsers do these
days).

> -------------------------------------------------------
> TH(title) Memoir hits the shelves
> -------------------------------------------------------
> TD (teaser) The 11th Duke of Devonshire's memoir,
> 'Accidents of Fortune' is now on sale
> -------------------------------------------------------
> TD (link) Read More
> -------------------------------------------------------

One possibility is to make the title a link. It works fairly well in most
circumstances, though with some inconvenience to users of speech browsers,
who need to go back a bit. Another option is to use

TD More info: (link) Memoir hits the shelves (end of link text)

It duplicates the title text, but that's tolerable.

And this approach gives the _option_ of making the title of the
presentation (in the TH) different from the title of the work advertized.
It could be something that "sells" the work better, in a particular
context, than its own title. Naturally, this would call for human work
(aka. "manual work"), but so does good advertizing in general.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/