WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Thread: title attribute as substitute for link text

for

Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)

From: adam solomon
Date: Sun, Dec 05 2010 5:45AM
Subject: title attribute as substitute for link text
No previous message | Next message →

Question:
I have an image which displays text and serves as a link to a different
location represented by that image text. Instead of placing an image element
inside the anchor tags and having an alt for the image, I decided for
reasons not specified here to include the image as a background image to the
anchor - and add title text to indicate the purpose of the link. Thus the
html is simply an anchor tage with a background image and a title attribute.
This wcag technique<http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20101014/H33>;
discusses
the issue, and I am not clear 100% if I have failed the success criterion or
not. Jaws 9 reads the title text on the anchor by default, and I am
wondering if the situation discussed in the technique, namely that there is
limited AT support for title attributes, may have improved in the last
year.
In brief: For sighted users there is no problem because they see the image
text. For screen reader users, a test in Jaws 9 works nicely.
(on the other hand, if the image doesn't load for some reason then sighted
users will also have a problem).
What say you? Are we wcag conformed on this one?
Thanks in advance for any responses.

--
adam solomon
linkedin <http://il.linkedin.com/pub/adam-solomon/24/449/a4>;
blogix <http://adam.blogix.co.il/>;

From: deborah.kaplan@suberic.net
Date: Sun, Dec 05 2010 6:27AM
Subject: Re: title attribute as substitute for link text
← Previous message | Next message →

adam solomon wrote:

> (on the other hand, if the image doesn't load for some reason then sighted users will also have a problem).

Are you only concerned about WCAG compliance, or about real world use? Because as you described here, there are any number of situations in which sighted users, with or without adaptive needs, might not be able to have access to the link text. Any person browsing mouselessly without images will be unable to have access to the link text.)-

Deborah

From: adam solomon
Date: Sun, Dec 05 2010 9:27AM
Subject: Re: title attribute as substitute for link text
← Previous message | Next message →

I don't understand the scenario. What does the mouse have to do with it?

On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 3:27 PM, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> adam solomon wrote:
>
> > (on the other hand, if the image doesn't load for some reason then
> sighted users will also have a problem).
>
> Are you only concerned about WCAG compliance, or about real world use?
> Because as you described here, there are any number of situations in which
> sighted users, with or without adaptive needs, might not be able to have
> access to the link text. Any person browsing mouselessly without images will
> be unable to have access to the link text.)-
>
> Deborah
>

From: adam solomon
Date: Sun, Dec 05 2010 9:45AM
Subject: Re: title attribute as substitute for link text
← Previous message | Next message →

Ok. I didn't pick up the words w/o images. So we are speaking about the
particular case of no images. I guess that also falls into the category of
not being accessible since no alternative content is supplied for the
picture (even though in this case the screen reader is not the problem).

On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 6:40 PM, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Dec 2010, adam solomon wrote:
>
> > I don't understand the scenario. What does the mouse have to do with it?
>
> Sighted users need a mouse to access the title attribute of the link. There
> is no keyboard-accessible way in most user agents to have access to the
> title attribute.
>
> -Deborah
>

From: deborah.kaplan@suberic.net
Date: Sun, Dec 05 2010 9:51AM
Subject: Re: title attribute as substitute for link text
← Previous message | No next message

On Sun, 5 Dec 2010, adam solomon wrote:

> I don't understand the scenario. What does the mouse have to do with it?

Sighted users need a mouse to access the title attribute of the link. There is no keyboard-accessible way in most user agents to have access to the title attribute.

-Deborah