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From: Gijs Veyfeyken
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 8:20AM
Subject: Link purpose (WCAG)
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Hi,

I'm well aware one should always use links that are meaningful without context.
But according to WCAG level A, it's allowed in meaningful context, such as the preceding heading.

WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context)) states:
"The purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone or from the link text together with its programmatically determined link context"
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#navigation-mechanisms-refs

Understanding SC 2.4.4. specifies "programmatically determined link context":
"the user should be able to identify the purpose of the link without moving focus from the link.
In other words, they can arrive on a link and find out more about it without losing their place.This can be achieved by putting the description of the link in the same sentence, paragraph, list item, the heading immediately preceding the link, or table cell as the link, or in the table header cell for a link in a data table, because these are directly associated with the link itself."
http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-refs.html

"the heading immediately preceding the link" can be considered as context.

However, it's not possible to read the heading immediately preceding the link with a screenreader without moving the focus, by my knowledge.

Technique H80 (Identifying the purpose of a link using link text combined with the preceding heading element) states:
"The command to take advantage of this technique in JAWS is "JAWS KEY + T"."
http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20120103/H80

Jaws Key + reads the title of the page <title>, not the first heading <h> above the focus.
Am I missing something or is this a mistake in WCAG?

Kind regards,

Gijs

---
Gijs Veyfeyken
AnySurfer - towards an accessible internet
http://www.anysurfer.be/en
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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 8:39AM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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I have always found this wording to be confusing myself, and JawsKey-T
will never work, I guess the thought is that it would read the title
of the link (often links with identical text use their title attribute
for clarifying information), but Jaws does not do this.
It will speak the title if explicitly told to do so, but it is not a
default setting.
I usually advocate, within reasonable limits, to use aria-describedby
to satisfy this success criteria:
http://oaa-accessibility.org/example/44/
Cheers
-Birkir
Birkir Gunnarsson | Accessibility Subject Matter Expert Deque Systems


On 7/22/13, Gijs Veyfeyken < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm well aware one should always use links that are meaningful without
> context.
> But according to WCAG level A, it's allowed in meaningful context, such as
> the preceding heading.
>
> WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context)) states:
> "The purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone or from
> the link text together with its programmatically determined link context"
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#navigation-mechanisms-refs
>
> Understanding SC 2.4.4. specifies "programmatically determined link
> context":
> "the user should be able to identify the purpose of the link without moving
> focus from the link.
> In other words, they can arrive on a link and find out more about it without
> losing their place.This can be achieved by putting the description of the
> link in the same sentence, paragraph, list item, the heading immediately
> preceding the link, or table cell as the link, or in the table header cell
> for a link in a data table, because these are directly associated with the
> link itself."
> http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-refs.html
>
> "the heading immediately preceding the link" can be considered as context.
>
> However, it's not possible to read the heading immediately preceding the
> link with a screenreader without moving the focus, by my knowledge.
>
> Technique H80 (Identifying the purpose of a link using link text combined
> with the preceding heading element) states:
> "The command to take advantage of this technique in JAWS is "JAWS KEY +
> T"."
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20120103/H80
>
> Jaws Key + reads the title of the page <title>, not the first heading <h>
> above the focus.
> Am I missing something or is this a mistake in WCAG?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Gijs
>
> ---
> Gijs Veyfeyken
> AnySurfer - towards an accessible internet
> http://www.anysurfer.be/en
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>
>
>
> > > >

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 10:56AM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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I think it started with an earlier version of JAWS, but I know in JAWS 14 that pressing JAWS+T while on a link will sometimes read the heading that appears before the link--along with the page title.



Tim Harshbarger
ACE - Accessibility Center of Excellence
Work: 309-532-0913
Cell/text: 309-532-0193

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 10:57AM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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What JAWS does do, at least when I hit Ins+T (JAWSKEY+T) is read the title of the page and then it reads the immediate heading preceding the current location for the user.

As Birkir points out, there are other ways to address this success criteria also.

I will point out that there is nothing that states that the user must never need to move their focus from the link. The Understanding document (which is non-normative) says that the user _should_ be able to determine this without moving their focus from the link, and the JAWS keystroke helps make this possible if the context is available via the preceding heading, but it can also be met via other means such as when words in the sentence containing the link provide the context. A screen reader user who tabs to a link that doesn't make immediate sense may need to arrow up and down to read the line where the link is found to see if it makes sense. From conversations and observations of assistive technology users, this seems reasonable (speak up if you disagree!). To get the link itself to provide all of the context in the link text, SC 2.4.9 (http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-link.html) is the triple A criteria that applies.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

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http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility

From: Krack, Joseph
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 11:01AM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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It is also important to have the link itself make sense/be meaningful.
Screen Reader users may also pull up a List of the Links in the
document. Scrolling through the possible links should make sense to
them. If the meaning of the link can only be gotten by reading just
prior to or after the link itself, then I don't think it can be
characterized as a meaningful hyperlink.

Joe

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 11:06AM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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Joe,
That's the difference between 2.4.4. and 2.4.9. What you are asking for (links making sense out of context) is a requirement of 2.4.9, but links making sense in context is the bar for 2.4.4.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility

From: Krack, Joseph
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 11:09AM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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So wouldn't the most stringent for accessibility take precedence? Making
sense out of context.

Joe

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 12:07PM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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So wouldn't the most stringent for accessibility take precedence? Making sense out of context.

[AWK] That's not the way that WCAG works. You can read about the WCAG success criteria levels at http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/conformance.html#uc-levels-head

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 12:09PM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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Hi Andrew,

just looking at PDF techniques for links I realise again how many technically incorrect pieces of information there are in the PDF techniques. In this specific case the PDF Technique "PDF13: Providing replacement text using the /Alt entry for links in PDF documents" is already getting things wrong in its title: replacement text, as defined in ISO 32000-1 14.9.4, is about the ActualText attribute, not the Alt attribute - which is talked about in the technique. And actually should not be used at all here, as far as I can tell, because the PDF standard as well as the PDF/UA standard explicitly make it clear that if an alternative description is to be provided for an annotation (which would include Link annotations) then it has to be done through the Contents entry of the annotation/Link. As a consequence the technique is inverting users to violate the PDF standard. And replacement text as well would be wring - because it is just that: it would replace the Link by some text. This implies that the link would disappear from the logical structure….

What is the right approach to get the PDF techniques fixed?

Olaf


Am 22 Jul 2013 um 18:57 schrieb Andrew Kirkpatrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> What JAWS does do, at least when I hit Ins+T (JAWSKEY+T) is read the title of the page and then it reads the immediate heading preceding the current location for the user.
>
> As Birkir points out, there are other ways to address this success criteria also.
>
> I will point out that there is nothing that states that the user must never need to move their focus from the link. The Understanding document (which is non-normative) says that the user _should_ be able to determine this without moving their focus from the link, and the JAWS keystroke helps make this possible if the context is available via the preceding heading, but it can also be met via other means such as when words in the sentence containing the link provide the context. A screen reader user who tabs to a link that doesn't make immediate sense may need to arrow up and down to read the line where the link is found to see if it makes sense. From conversations and observations of assistive technology users, this seems reasonable (speak up if you disagree!). To get the link itself to provide all of the context in the link text, SC 2.4.9 (http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-link.html) is the triple A criteria that applies.
>
> Thanks,
> AWK
>
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Group Product Manager, Accessibility
> Adobe Systems
>
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> http://twitter.com/awkawk
> http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
>
>
>

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Jul 22 2013 12:54PM
Subject: Re: Link purpose (WCAG)
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Olaf,
The right way is to file issues with the Working Group - http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/comments/onlineform

I'm looking into this one - replacement text is definitely the wrong wording.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

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http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility