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Thread: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

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From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Tue, Oct 19 2004 4:45PM
Subject: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

On 10/19/04 3:05 PM, &quot;mmoore&quot; simply typed the following:

We can do the same with a link to the remainder of the article on a web site &quot;More on Accessibility&quot; instead of &quot;More on this story&quot; &nbsp;This approach has two advantages to someone using a link list for navigation. &nbsp;First it tells them what to expect when they activate the link, second it tells them that there is something important prior to this link that they may want to read first. &nbsp;

I like your idea for a static site... But for a dynamic one, this is not always possible. And I agree that it&#8217;s problematic and shouldn&#8217;t be done. I&#8217;ve dealt with this on a couple sites I subbed for and did the HTML/CSS coding only. I didn&#8217;t have enough control over the final product to affect the outcome (and thus, all the links say &#8220;Read more....&#8221;), however, I&#8217;m not really sure what could have been done differently either.

The &#8220;Read more...&#8221; portion received its link (a href) dynamically and each is a news story.

I have a static site under my control presently where I&#8217;m able to change all the &#8220;Click here&#8221; notes the copywriter made into more descriptive links. I&#8217;ve even been able to educate her on why &#8220;Click here&#8221; isn&#8217;t a good idea. LOL

Stephanie Sullivan
Community MX Partner :: http://www.communitymx.com/author.cfm?cid=1008
Team Macromedia for Dreamweaver :: http://tinyurl.com/6huw3
Co-Author .: &quot;Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic&quot; :. New Riders

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

From: Cheyrl D. Wise
Date: Tue, Oct 19 2004 5:01PM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

I have a client that insists on "click here" in almost
every link because as she puts it "you don't know how many people out there just
don't realize something is a link unless it says so". At least she is open to
more than click here being in the link as in "click here for more information on
xyz".

Cheryl D. WiseCertified Professional Web
DeveloperMS-MVP-FrontPagewww.wiserways.com<A
href="mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ">mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = 713.353.0139
Office

From:Stephanie
Sullivan I have a static site under my control
presently where I&#8217;m able to change all the &#8220;Click here&#8221; notes the copywriter
made into more descriptive links. I&#8217;ve even been able to educate her on why
&#8220;Click here&#8221; isn&#8217;t a good idea. LOL

From: Estelle Weyl
Date: Tue, Oct 19 2004 5:35PM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

What
about the situation where you have an article that is several pages long.
On many sites you simply see "next". Alistapart.com uses "more
articles". I have used "more information" when it really is more
information - with a title attribute inside the link explaining exactly what the
more information is about. If you are continuing the same article onto a
second html page, what is the proper protocol?

Estelle Weyl415.845.9906www.estelleweyl.com<A
href="mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ">e = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: julian.rickards
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 6:37AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

It
might be possible to repeat the heading text in the "Read more" link such
as:

TITANIC SINKS!
On the
morning of April 12, 1914, the Titanic (the unsinkable ship), on its maiden
voyage hit an iceburg and sank.
Read
more about TITANIC SINKS...

-----------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards A/Digital Publications Distribution
Coordinator Publication Services
Section, Ministry of Northern
Development and Mines, Vox:
705-670-5608 / Fax: 705-670-5960

From: julian.rickards
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 7:08AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

I
don't know that there is a protocol which is why there is some much discussion
about things that seem to be so simple.

I
suggest "Next page" or "Page 2" or "Page 2 of 5" or what Sitepoint.com does
which is to state the title of the next page of the article.

-----------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards A/Digital Publications Distribution
Coordinator Publication Services
Section, Ministry of Northern
Development and Mines, Vox:
705-670-5608 / Fax: 705-670-5960

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 10:07AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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> I have a client that insists on "click here" in almost every link
> because as she puts it "you don't know how many people out there just
> don't realize something is a link unless it says so".

I'm all for making it easy for end-users, but 'click here' is something that
actually can hinder the usability of the site for a chunk of people, and,
really, learning how to click a link is *the* fundamental principal of HTML
and, as such, the web. Has anyone been in a user testing session where
someone had no concept of clicking on links? I think the 'click here' phenom
comes mainly from the client as they write content for the site offline as a
way to explicitely show what text should be linked.

As for a dynamic site, if you can pull up the name of the article, then you
can surely create a dynamic 'more info on [insert title]' link as well.
Granted, if the actual code is out of your hands (as in a purchased CMS)
then you may be out of luck, as I don't see too many CMS products concerned
with things like this these days.

And I say all of this having a site that currently uses a lot of 'more
info...' links. Yes, it's on my to-do list. ;o)

-Darrel

From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 12:44PM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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On 10/20/04 11:59 AM, "darrel.austin" simply typed the following:

> I'm all for making it easy for end-users, but 'click here' is something that
> actually can hinder the usability of the site for a chunk of people, and,
> really, learning how to click a link is *the* fundamental principal of HTML
> and, as such, the web. Has anyone been in a user testing session where
> someone had no concept of clicking on links? I think the 'click here' phenom
> comes mainly from the client as they write content for the site offline as a
> way to explicitely show what text should be linked.

Honestly, there is a whole school of copywriting thought that says you must
spur people to "take action." It's not that people don't know how to click a
link... It's that they feel that by TELLING them to, the chances are greater
that they will actually do it.

I've read these copywriting tips... And I've tried to educate the woman that
does copy for me at times so that she can understand why this is not good
for usability and accessibility and so she can combine a more
active/descriptive link text with what she's already used to using... she's
doing better. :)

It's all in learning... And educating other people... And combining
techniques... It's a lot of work though, eh? Keeping up with it all from
every angle? :P

Stephanie Sullivan
Community MX Partner :: http://www.communitymx.com/author.cfm?cid=1008
Team Macromedia for Dreamweaver :: http://tinyurl.com/6huw3
Co-Author .: "Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic" :. New Riders

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within
themselves.

From: Cheyrl D. Wise
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 1:22PM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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I agree but the client is dead set on it. This isn't a dynamic site and
usually leads to a price sheet or a larger image as in "click here for a
larger image"

Cheryl D. Wise
Certified Professional Web Developer
MS-MVP-FrontPage
www.wiserways.com
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
713.353.0139 Office

From: Andrew Arch
Date: Thu, Oct 21 2004 6:43AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

Stephanie,

One
site I provided some advice on recently that was being dynamically generated was
able to utilise the link title attribute to add some useful information. They
were able to modify the code so that, while the link text was still "Read more
....", it had an associated title that they could auto-populate with the article
title.

Don't
know if this is an option for you - may be worth a try.

Andrew

From: Andrew Arch
Date: Thu, Oct 21 2004 6:46AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

Cheryl,
Have you seen Trenton Moss' recent article on effective links?
May help your arguments regarding "click here to ...".
See
http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/101703-writing-effective-link-text.html.
Andrew

From: julian.rickards
Date: Thu, Oct 21 2004 6:53AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

The
unfortunate thing about the title attribute is that JAWS users don't necessarily
"see" it because the standard verbosity setting in JAWS does not read title
attribute text.

Jules
-----------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards A/Digital Publications Distribution
Coordinator Publication Services
Section, Ministry of Northern
Development and Mines, Vox:
705-670-5608 / Fax: 705-670-5960

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Thu, Oct 21 2004 8:22AM
Subject: Re: More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)
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More on this story... (Was: HTML heading styles)

Hi All,
Another tip, related to the front loading technique
suggested for writing linked text:
Screen readers users can use first letter navigation to
get to a link quickly in a list of links. A bunch of links called "Click
here" slows down the process of getting to say the Contact Us
link.
Also prefixing links with the org's name or the
like makes first letter navigation inefficient. If links are being prefixed
with a set of words, perhaps there is a case for grouping links with the
prefix as a header.
Sailesh PanchangSenior Accessibility Engineer
Deque Systems,11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, 4th Floor, Reston VA
20191Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105 E-mail: <A
href="mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = "> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = :
703-225-0387* Look up <;<A
href="http://www.deque.com">http://www.deque.com>;; *

Andrew writes:
Have you seen Trenton Moss' recent article on effective links?
May help your arguments regarding "click here to ...".
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

See <A
href="http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/101703-writing-effective-link-text.html">http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/101703-writing-effective-link-text.html.
Andrew