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Thread: RE: "Greater Than" symbols used for other things
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 11:53PM
Subject: RE: "Greater Than" symbols used for other things
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Carol Foster wrote:
> Just wondering about opinions on using the ">" symbol for
> things like crumb separators and so forth.
Short answer: I'm against that.
> I notice the WebAIM site uses them, e.g. on
> http://www.webaim.org/howto/captions/
We might try to figure out how well the string
Home > How-To > Captions
works, when the words are links and the content is read aloud by a speech
synthesizer. Then we would have to ask how the character ">" should be
treated in speech synthesis in general and whether it is feasible to expect
different treatment in different contexts. In the original and still common
meaning of the character, in mathematical expressions like x > 42, the
appropriate reading in English would be "is greater than". But since the
character has so many uses, such as the use in HTML and XML tag delimiters
and otherwise in lieu of angle brackets, something more neutral and
context-independent is needed, unless some sophisticated contextual analysis
is performed each time the character is encountered. Mere "greater" could
easily be misunderstood, so "greater than" or even "greater than sign"
should apparently be used.
It has been mentioned in the discussion that some software ignores ">" or
the double ">>". Can that really be possible? How do they read text
containing simple mathematical expressions then?
One might use a small image instead, and then we could write an alt text
that says how it should be read. But what would that be? We could even use
different alt texts for the different occurrences, but it's hard to tell
what words would convey the idea of hierarchy. How would the following sound
like? "(link) Home, section (link) How-To, current topic: Captions". When
there are several hierarchy levels, you could use "section" as alt text for
the first occurrence of the symbol, "subsection" for the second, and maybe
"subsubsection" for the third.
But let's consider it in a different way. Suppose you would like to inform
the user that the current page has the short name "Captions" and it belongs
to a section named "How-To" and you would like to have a link to the latter
as well as the main page of the site. How would you do that if speech were
the only mode of communication? Would you write
[link] Home > [link] How-To > Captions
and just consider whether the separator character ">" will be read in an
understandable way?
No, I don't think you would. You would probably say something like
"This page belongs to the (link) How-To section of the (link) WebAIM site."
And I would say that this is roughly what you should write too. (It id
redundant to write "Captions" in our current example, since it's just a
short name for the page, and the page should have a descriptive title
element and a good heading anyway, so repeating that in abbreviated form is
rather redundant.) That would be understandable to almost anyone who knows
English, wouldn't it? The breadcrumb paradigm isn't as obvious as it seems.
I have toyed with the idea of recommending Web page authors to start with
designing the auditive appearance of a page. Since it is difficult to keep
structure, content and presentation as separate as we should, people want to
work with all aspects simultaneous. This is why we currently have the
situation that I call the tyranny of the normal PC screen in Web site
design. If you have to design structure and content together with
presentation, it's better to work with auditive presentation for several
reasons. Most people easily realize that they need to consider visual
apperance too, at some later moment. But one of the reasons for primarily
auditive design is that you can't play with symbols and abbreviations so
much.
> We are working on a site where this symbol is used to point
> to the current heading in the left nav. JAWS says "greater",
> which could be pretty confusing. Should we go to the trouble of
> making a graphic version, as I have heard suggested, with alt text
> something like "the current topic is:"?
Maybe. Not as a separate graphic version, but as a modification to the
existing one. This would let you use a better symbol, such as an arrow, in
the visual presentation. You might make the alt text more concise, for
example "Current:" or even "Now at". Or maybe you could simply use the words
"Now at" as such.
--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi/
Diffuse Business Guide to Web Accessibility and Design for All:
http://www.diffuse.org/accessibility.html
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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Fri, Sep 27 2002 2:22PM
Subject: RE: "Greater Than" symbols used for other things
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The issue of breadcrumbs is an interesting one. Two main questions have
arisen in this thread:
1. The most fundamental question: Are breadcrumbs good?
2. If you use breadcrumbs, how can you make them accessible to those
using screen readers (e.g., do you use the 'greater than' character [>]?
1.
The first question, of whether breadcrumbs are good or not, deserves
some discussion. The purpose of breadcrumbs is to tell users where they
are within a web site. The example of "Home > How-To > Captions" tells
users that they are on the "Captions" document within the "How-To"
section of the site, which is one level below the "Home" page. Although
this is not always important information to know, it can be very useful
to those who enter the site via search engines, or to make sure that you
are in the right location within the site. For example, If you are
looking for information about mouse devices for a Mac computer, you
could refer to the breadcrumbs to make sure you were in the right
section of the site. If the breadcrumbs say "Home > Computer hardware >
Mouse devices > Mac" you would know that you're in the right location.
If the breadcrumbs say "Home > Internet Browsers > Mac" you would know
that you are in the wrong location. They help give you a context.
If the breadcrumbs are links, then they serve not only as a guide to the
site hierarchy, but as a way to navigate through that hierarchy. This
can be great for site navigation.
There are many advocates of using breadcrumbs, and there are many sites
which currently use them. The prevelance of breadcrumbs actually has the
potential of increasing their usability because people are more familiar
with them.
Several usability studies have shown that breadcrumbs increase the
usability of sites for most users. Here is a quote from one study:
"All participants noticed the "breadcrumb" navigation links on the lower
level pages, and most clicked the links. In addition, most participants
understood (or partially understood) the underlying concept and function
of these links."
Here is a quote from another study:
"The impact is clear-navigation bars are good, but more so for advanced
users than novice ones. For large websites, they are invaluable. The
amount of screen space lost is minimal and they show users where they
are in the architecture. Web directories can help save people valuable
minutes and hundreds of mouse clicks by implementing them properly.
Since people are occasionally lost and confused without them, companies
can relieve disorder and keep people on their websites for longer. In
the world of e-commerce, that could mean millions of dollars lost or
saved based on a simple navigation aid."
As you might guess, not all users are able to understand or make use of
breadcrumbs, but nearly all of the literature out there says that
breadcrumbs are beneficial to at least a majority of the users.
2.
*HOWEVER*, I personally haven't seen any studies that evaluate the
effectiveness of breadcrumbs to screen reader users. Now we get to the
second question of how to make breadcrumbs accessible to users of screen
readers.
To be honest, I have struggled with this question, and I don't have a
definitive answer, but here's my thinking:
Using the "greater than" symbol is not ideal, but it does have some
logic behind it. In the example of "Home > How-To > Captions", we can
infer that a hierarchy exists in which the Home page is "greater than"
or "higher up in the hierarchy" than "How-To", and that "How-To" is
above "Captions" in the same way. The hierarchy remains intact. Other
sites use a forward slash [/] to differentiate the breadcrumb elements,
like this: Home/How-To/Captions. Forward slashes are commonly used in
operating systems such as Windows and Unix to denote hierarchy. As we
move deeper into the age of graphical user interfaces, though, most
people are not quite as familiar with the meaning of forward slashes.
The "folder" metaphor is better understood by most. I would not
recommend using the folder metaphor, though. It doesn't seem quite right
on the Web in most circumstances. I have also seen a colon used [:]. I'm
not a big fan of this one, but I suppose it works too. If I had to
choose between using a greater than symbol, a forward slash, and a
colon, I would choose the greater than symbol. That's just my
preference.
Of course, Jukka is correct in saying that when you *listen* to the
breadcrumb structure with a screen reader, you may not be able to tell
what you're listening to. Hearing the words "greater than" or "slash" or
"colon" can be confusing. On the other hand, the WebAIM site is not the
only site that uses breadcrumbs. People who use screen readers have
probably encountered them before. Perhaps this makes it easier to
understand, or perhaps this just means that they're confused every time
that they come across breadcrumbs. I admit that I don't know. I would be
interested to hear about the experiences of others on this list who are
regular users of screen readers. Let us know!
---
So, my CONCLUSION is that I don't yet have a better solution than the
one that I'm currently using on the site, but I realize that it's not
perfect. I'll keep thinking about it, and I'll take Jukka's suggestions
into account, but I honestly don't think I have a "best" answer at this
point.
Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu
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From: Lisa Halabi
Date: Mon, Sep 30 2002 1:56PM
Subject: RE: "Greater Than" symbols used for other things
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Hi there,
Just a general observation regarding the use of breadcrumbs. I've run
several usability tests in the UK with a range of users, although many were
relatively inexperienced. I was quite surprised to find that although some
did notice breadcrumbs, hardly anyone actually used them for navigation. I
therefore came to the conclusion that they were not as beneficial as I
originally thought they would be. However I do believe they will steadily
become more useful as people discover/learn their purpose and general
overall web experience increases. They are especially useful for
hierarchical structured sites with divisions and subdivisions, such as
online retailing.
Best,
Lisa
Lisa Halabi
Senior Usability & Accessibility Consultant
Events Coordinator - UK Usability Professionals Assoc.
www.usabilitybydesign.com
Email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Tel: +44 (0)7956 280 447
"If technology doesn't work for people, it doesn't work."
OR "if technology worked then I wouldn't..."
From: Adrian Howard
Date: Mon, Sep 30 2002 4:21PM
Subject: Re: "Greater Than" symbols used for other things
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On Monday, September 30, 2002, at 09:43 pm, Lisa Halabi wrote:
> [snip] I was quite surprised to find that although some
> did notice breadcrumbs, hardly anyone actually used them for navigation. I
> therefore came to the conclusion that they were not as beneficial as I
> originally thought they would be.[snip]
Wandering off topic... but just because a user doesn't use the trail
for direct navigation doesn't mean that they don't find it useful.
I've had similar experiences of users not using the trail for
navigation, but they *did* use it as a cue for positioning themselves
in the site.
Tests without the trail showed markedly lower performance levels, even
though the trail wasn't used much for direct navigation.
Cheers,
Adrian
--
Adrian Howard < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
phone: 01929 550720 fax: 0870 131 3033 www.quietstars.com
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From: Frank Gaine
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2002 3:46AM
Subject: Giz a call
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Lisa,
Hope you are very well and that you enjoyed your break.
Giz a call if you want to catch up sometime, maybe we could sort out the
aspects of your site that you want to change.
Regards
FG
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