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Re: 10.5 Separate adjacent links

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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Mar 21, 2005 12:37PM

glenda wrote:
> I thought one reason for providing the non-linked, printable characters
> between adjacent links was to provide a visual cue to help people with
> cognitive disabilities to identify the break between links. Using the lists
> without the bullets wouldn't provide the visual cue.

The guideline has mostly been a technically motivated one. It was set
out to compensate for faulty assistive technology (screenreaders,
braille interfaces, etc) which would not clearly distinguish between
adjacent links (as far as I remember, one main culprit was an old
screenreader in combination Netscape 4, which would simply read
everything out as one, long link).

As for visual cues...that's what CSS is for. Yes, remove the bullet, but
add a left/right border and you have exactly the same visual effect (and
far greater control over it, for that matter).

Patrick
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Patrick H. Lauke
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