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From: Terence de Giere
Date: Thu, May 01 2003 1:30PM
Subject: Link Text (Re: Inidcating a non-html link)
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Lynnette --

Link text needs to include some of the surrounding context to be easier
to use for non-visual browsing. For example, we sometimes find on news
sites a bold header leading into a short paragraph followed by a link
'more...', that takes the user to the complete story. Very efficient for
visual use. Several of these 'more...' links might be on the page. If a
screen reader user is just listening to the links, they get 'more...,
more..., more..., etc.' Let's say the headings to the paragraphs are 1.
'Tony Blaire returns to England', 2. 'War winds down in Iraq' 3. 'Orange
soda causes cancer', and 4. Sky too high to touch, researcher says'. If
we amplify the 'more...' links a bit we might have 'Blaire returns,
more..., Iraq, more..., Orange soda, more..., and 'Sky too high,
more.... There are choices to make, but shorter is better but there is
no one correct way. One might say for example 'Blaire returns, full
article' etc., for the link text. The idea is to make each link to a
unique resource have a unique description that also makes sense in
common language.

Take a look at the American Foundation for the Blind home page:
http://www.afb.org/

In the context of this page all the links except for perhaps one, will
work well. Note how the links to the audio files containing a greeting
from the Foundation's president, located near the end of the page are
handled, the file format and the content of the file are both a part of
the link text description. The one link on the page that seems to me
ambiguous is 'subscriber version' in the text under the heading Section
2: Directory of Services. It might be better worded 'Directory of
Services, subscriber version', so it means something more than a generic
term if experienced alone.

This relates to the question on the forum about links to Word, PDF files
and other non-html formats. An icon image, even an Adobe PDF icon which
is well known, probably should not be used alone without plain link text
because sighted users might be unfamiliar with it and not see alternate
text associated with the image. One probably should use the icon with
plain link text and include the icon in the link so for usability the
normal user with a mouse can click on either the icon or the text and
get the document - if only one is active, the user might click on the
wrong spot and then have to waste time to click again. Avoid having two
separate links, one for the icon, one for the text. If the file is
large, it might be useful to include the file size as well, but with the
disparity in download speeds now available, it might be overkill to try
to give an estimate of the download time. We could have, say (starting
with a PDF icon represented here by its alternate text), '[PDF icon]
2003 Research Report, Adobe PDF file, 500kb'. We could add the
abbreviation element with a title around PDF, and even 'kb' to give the
full meaning to those abbreviations as well. If we wanted to estimate
the download time, assuming a lot of non technical computer users won't
know how to mentally translate 500kb into time, we could give an
approximation based on the typical upper boundary of a slower modem, say
a 28800 modem: '[PDF icon] 2003 Research Report, PDF file, 3 minutes
slow modem', although I think most users know if they have a dial-up
modem stuff takes a long time to download.

It depends on the page context how much one can truncate the link text
and still have it work without surrounding context. On the American
Foundation for the Blind home page, there are one word links, e.g.,
'events' and 'announcements' that seem fine to me because there is
nothing in the context that would make them ambiguous. The user, if
reasonably conscious, knows what site they are on, and the meaning of
the words is straightforward, particularly because they are common
options on many web sites. Consistency is important. If we used a link
'events', but the page it pointed to was called "Functions for May", or
worse, just "Functions", it might cause some confusion; it would be
better to use "Events for May" as the page title, or even just "Events",
to nit pik consistency.

We do have to recognize that the brevity that often is entirely
appropriate for links in visual design and visual usability, may have to
be modified and made longer if the same page is also to serve for non
visual users. This also should help some users with cognitive problems.
The biggest surprise I had when I first tested a task with screen reader
users on site was the way they zoomed through links, but did not read
any of the other content on the page, and it was very consistent
behavior from user to user.

Terence de Giere
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