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RE: Duplicate links...

for

From: John Foliot
Date: Jun 7, 2006 10:20AM

Stephanie Sullivan wrote:
>
> Is there a recommended method of getting around this? Is it really
> confusing to a user to have these same links accessible at both the
> top and bottom of the page? Or is this a case of "I know best," and
> you just ignore the failure?

Well...

On one hand, there *is* the issue of duplicate links - very often screen
reader users will bring up a list of links (in JAWS it's "INSERT + F7") to
replicate a "page scanning" type of review - one reason why link text must
also make sense when taken out of context.

However, depending on your page layout and the amount of content, having
those duplicate links at the top and bottom *may* improve
usability/accessibility for other users. So your stance of "I know best"
does have some merit.

Perhaps using the title attribute on the anchor tags could aid somewhat for
those users who do INSERT + F7; perhaps something along the lines of: <a
href="URL" title="Duplicate link to foobar">Foobar</a>. Please note however
that this presumes that the end user's verbosity settings (etc.) are such
that the title attribute is captured/conveyed.

As far as the WCAG is concerned, always remember that they are Guidelines,
and not standards, and so are subject to interpretation. You are 95% there
if you understand the issues and then make an informed decision. At the end
of the day, you have to ask yourself "does the upside for one group of users
outweigh the down side for another?" In this particular scenario, I would
suspect that you are safe in ignoring the "failure" being outputted by the
testing tool. (But, as always, this is just an opinion)

HTH

JF