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Thread: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Crystal Tenan
Date: Tue, May 01 2018 8:33AM
Subject: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol
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Hello,
We have a group that I'm working with to try and have them move away from
using AT or an image of the @ sign in their email addresses that are on our
websites. For example cltenan AT college.edu instead of
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = . I find these other ways confusing and inaccessible
when using a screen reader. I can't find anything that directly spells out
not to use this practice, but I'm trying to provide them feedback as to
what in the Revised Section 508 guidelines it violates. I'm having
difficulty aligning exactly which guideline this would fall under, any
assistance would be appreciated. *Also they hyperlinked the AT and image @
email addresses so the links go to a faulty email address.
Thank you,
--
*Crystal L. Tenan*
IT Accessibility Coordinator
NC State University
Office of Information Technology
Outreach, Communications & Consulting
P: 919.513.4087
Campus Box 7109
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu
From: glen walker
Date: Tue, May 01 2018 9:01AM
Subject: Re: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol
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A lot of sites used to separate the email into parts so that screen
scrapers could not automatically gather email addresses from websites and
be used for spamming. I don't know if that practice helps or not but it
might explain why it was done.
As far as the faulty email addresses, that wouldn't be any different than
having a bad link on your page that goes to a page that doesn't exist
anymore or that was moved. It's a bad UX for everyone but is not strictly
an accessibility violation.
If AT is uppercased, the screen reader might say the letters separately, as
A and T.
The @ image might need an alt text of "at".
If I use the virtual cursor to navigate through the email pieces, if I can
hear "name at college.edu" then I can probably figure it out. But if I
hear "name image college.edu", then you have an accessibility violation
(1.1.1). If I hear "name a tee college.edu", then it's debatable if
there's a violation. It could be a AAA readable issue (3.1).
On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 8:33 AM, Crystal Tenan < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We have a group that I'm working with to try and have them move away from
> using AT or an image of the @ sign in their email addresses that are on our
> websites. For example cltenan AT college.edu instead of
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = . I find these other ways confusing and inaccessible
> when using a screen reader. I can't find anything that directly spells out
> not to use this practice, but I'm trying to provide them feedback as to
> what in the Revised Section 508 guidelines it violates. I'm having
> difficulty aligning exactly which guideline this would fall under, any
> assistance would be appreciated. *Also they hyperlinked the AT and image @
> email addresses so the links go to a faulty email address.
>
> Thank you,
>
> --
> *Crystal L. Tenan*
> IT Accessibility Coordinator
> NC State University
> Office of Information Technology
> Outreach, Communications & Consulting
>
> P: 919.513.4087
> Campus Box 7109
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu
> > > > >
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, May 01 2018 9:06AM
Subject: Re: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol
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On 01/05/2018 15:33, Crystal Tenan wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We have a group that I'm working with to try and have them move away from
> using AT or an image of the @ sign in their email addresses that are on our
> websites. For example cltenan AT college.edu instead of
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = . I find these other ways confusing and inaccessible
> when using a screen reader. I can't find anything that directly spells out
> not to use this practice, but I'm trying to provide them feedback as to
> what in the Revised Section 508 guidelines it violates. I'm having
> difficulty aligning exactly which guideline this would fall under, any
> assistance would be appreciated. *Also they hyperlinked the AT and image @
> email addresses so the links go to a faulty email address.
I don't believe this contravenes any WCAG 2 SC nor any extended 508
refresh requirements directly (assuming that when they use the "@" image
it has appropriate alt text).
To me, this falls more into a usability rather than accessibility argument.
Their likely reason for doing it will be "so that bots can't scrape our
pages and gather email addresses to then spam us". Of course, if these
email addresses are perceived to be valuable enough, it's trivial for
bots to also look for "a string of characters that looks like the first
part of an email address, followed by AT, followed by another string of
characters which looks like a valid domain name". And spam is really a
problem that's better sorted at the email server end (spam filtering etc).
So the argument boils down to: is the advantage or perhaps receiving
less spam outweighed by the inconvenience caused to *all* users?
(and the fact that their links are then also broken is just a bad bug
for all users as well).
P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Tue, May 01 2018 10:00AM
Subject: Re: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol
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What about 1.4.5 (images of text)?
http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-text-presentation.html
I'm not sure to what extent a single character can be defined as text,
but there is a text representation of the @ symbol, so there have to
be specific reasons why an image is used.
If there are security concerns I think those are valid and would
count, as long as the image has the alt text "at" (make sure it is
either an img element with an alt attribute, an SVG image with
<title>at</title> or, if it is a background image or icon that it has
role="img" and aria-label="at").
On 5/1/18, Patrick H. Lauke < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> On 01/05/2018 15:33, Crystal Tenan wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> We have a group that I'm working with to try and have them move away from
>> using AT or an image of the @ sign in their email addresses that are on
>> our
>> websites. For example cltenan AT college.edu instead of
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = . I find these other ways confusing and inaccessible
>> when using a screen reader. I can't find anything that directly spells
>> out
>> not to use this practice, but I'm trying to provide them feedback as to
>> what in the Revised Section 508 guidelines it violates. I'm having
>> difficulty aligning exactly which guideline this would fall under, any
>> assistance would be appreciated. *Also they hyperlinked the AT and image @
>> email addresses so the links go to a faulty email address.
>
> I don't believe this contravenes any WCAG 2 SC nor any extended 508
> refresh requirements directly (assuming that when they use the "@" image
> it has appropriate alt text).
>
> To me, this falls more into a usability rather than accessibility argument.
>
> Their likely reason for doing it will be "so that bots can't scrape our
> pages and gather email addresses to then spam us". Of course, if these
> email addresses are perceived to be valuable enough, it's trivial for
> bots to also look for "a string of characters that looks like the first
> part of an email address, followed by AT, followed by another string of
> characters which looks like a valid domain name". And spam is really a
> problem that's better sorted at the email server end (spam filtering etc).
>
> So the argument boils down to: is the advantage or perhaps receiving
> less spam outweighed by the inconvenience caused to *all* users?
>
> (and the fact that their links are then also broken is just a bad bug
> for all users as well).
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
> http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> > > > >
--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, May 01 2018 2:06PM
Subject: Re: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol
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On 01/05/2018 17:00, Birkir R. Gunnarsson wrote:
> What about 1.4.5 (images of text)?
> http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-text-presentation.html
>
> I'm not sure to what extent a single character can be defined as text,
> but there is a text representation of the @ symbol, so there have to
> be specific reasons why an image is used.
> If there are security concerns I think those are valid and would
> count, as long as the image has the alt text "at" (make sure it is
> either an img element with an alt attribute, an SVG image with
> <title>at</title> or, if it is a background image or icon that it has
> role="img" and aria-label="at").
Sure, at a stretch - if you're really pushed to fail *something* - then
yes. Crystal did say there were also situations where just the uppercase
"AT" string was used, so won't have anything to fail there though. And
it won't address the larger problem of those emails being annoying (for
all users though).
P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke