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From: Vaibhav Saraf
Date: Mon, Aug 03 2020 9:05AM
Subject: WebAIM: Redundant link alert in Wave
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Hi Everyone,

I am a little confused how Wave alerts for redundant links. Any idea
regarding the same?

Do we really need to care much for them? Like a link for 'Shop now' is in
the header and then in the navigation menu list. The second one is often
marked as a redundant link.

If they post some serious accessibility issue (which I don't think in this
case), how should one handle them? And some peculiar cases where these can
be problematic?

Sorry for firing too many questions and thanks for reading the long enough
mail :)

Thanks,
Vaibhav

From: Steve Green
Date: Mon, Aug 03 2020 9:17AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM: Redundant link alert in Wave
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Unfortunately, Wave seems to be the tool of choice for the ambulance-chasing parasite lawyers that bring all the ADA cases in the US. The tool invariably finds redundant links, and the law suits always mentions them as being insurmountable accessibility barriers.

We all know that's nonsense, but the defence lawyers don't want to get into technical arguments in court, so they just accept it and pay the resulting large settlement.

So our advice to clients in the US is to fix every one of those redundant links (and all other false positives). There is no accessibility barrier, but they make you more vulnerable to spurious ADA claims. In countries with a more reasonable legal system (just about everywhere else except North Korea) you can afford to ignore the redundant links.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mon, Aug 03 2020 9:52AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM: Redundant link alert in Wave
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The Redundant Link item in WAVE identifies two adjacent links that go to the same URL. It is an Alert, not an Error, so may not have notable end user impact. The Alert prompts additional testing and consideration. In most cases the links can be combined into one link, or one of them can be removed. In the example of one link in the header and another link to the same place in navigation, this may be appropriate. If so, the Alert can be ignored.

> Unfortunately, Wave seems to be the tool of choice for the ambulance-chasing parasite lawyers that bring all the ADA cases in the US.

This is very unfortunate. Use of WAVE in legal actions is a violation of our terms of use. We will notify any lawyers of this if/when we are apprised that they are inappropriately using WAVE in these ways.

Thanks,

Jared

From: Vaibhav Saraf
Date: Mon, Aug 03 2020 10:19AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM: Redundant link alert in Wave
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Thanks Jared for the details.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the information. I will discuss with the consultants. Currently
I am doing some PoC for a Canadian client, so I believe its OK to ignore
the false positive.

And as Jared emphasized hopefully we will see a better picture in ADA law
suites going on.

Thanks,
Vaibhav
On Mon, 3 Aug 2020 at 21:22, Jared Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> The Redundant Link item in WAVE identifies two adjacent links that go to
> the same URL. It is an Alert, not an Error, so may not have notable end
> user impact. The Alert prompts additional testing and consideration. In
> most cases the links can be combined into one link, or one of them can be
> removed. In the example of one link in the header and another link to the
> same place in navigation, this may be appropriate. If so, the Alert can be
> ignored.
>
> > Unfortunately, Wave seems to be the tool of choice for the
> ambulance-chasing parasite lawyers that bring all the ADA cases in the US.
>
> This is very unfortunate. Use of WAVE in legal actions is a violation of
> our terms of use. We will notify any lawyers of this if/when we are
> apprised that they are inappropriately using WAVE in these ways.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jared
>
>
> > > > >

From: glen walker
Date: Mon, Aug 03 2020 10:51AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM: Redundant link alert in Wave
← Previous message | Next message →

>
> > Unfortunately, Wave seems to be the tool of choice for the
> ambulance-chasing parasite lawyers that bring all the ADA cases in the US.
>
> This is very unfortunate. Use of WAVE in legal actions is a violation of
> our terms of use. We will notify any lawyers of this if/when we are
> apprised that they are inappropriately using WAVE in these ways.
>

Thanks for pointing this out, Jared. The third paragraph is pretty clear (
https://wave.webaim.org/terms). I have seen potential complaint letters
using WAVE results and now I know I can ask if they have written permission
to do so.

From: Mallory
Date: Mon, Aug 03 2020 11:59AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM: Redundant link alert in Wave
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I have smelly opinions on redundant links. :P

Sometimes, they help you to be *robust* -- for example, having multiple ways to reach a contact page. They might all be called "contact" or "contact us".

Sometimes, they are a pain in the butt and can even cause confusion: adjacent redundant links adjacent redundant links. Usually happens when someone wants a large clickable area for mouse users, so they wrap a link around an image (with the alt text being set as the link text, such as a product name) and then another link on the text immediately following (keeping with this example, the product name again). Example: "Kyocera Ecosys P5021cdw" "Kyocera Ecosys P5021cdw".

Most of those are merely annoying, however I have encountered them and made tickets for them when the link text is a long legal paragraph. That's already terrible link text, doesn't really tell users where exactly it will take them... hearing it twice causes users to need better working memory, in order to determine if these are two different links or just repeats. I eventually expect a later version of the WCAG to hit those under coga reasons. Today we can only use 2.4.4 Link Text in context.

This specific case of "shop now" if I'm already on a site where I am shopping, I'm not sure I can really tell where that even takes me-- so someone could possibly argue having vaguely-named links twice could be a problem. I wouldn't mention it in an audit at all, personally.

In light of Steve's point, this might be an excellent opportunity to give one of those nebulous "Shop now" links a better name. Is the main site not a shop at all, so the links go to a dedicated shop? "Buy [brand] stuff now" might be a better call to action for one of them. If the whole site is a shop, then where does that link take you? Promoted stuff? Most recent sale? Top-rated by buyers? Consider using any of that info in one of the links. I think it would still count as a call-to-action.

cheers,
_mallory

On Mon, Aug 3, 2020, at 5:17 PM, Steve Green wrote:
> Unfortunately, Wave seems to be the tool of choice for the
> ambulance-chasing parasite lawyers that bring all the ADA cases in the
> US. The tool invariably finds redundant links, and the law suits always
> mentions them as being insurmountable accessibility barriers.
>
> We all know that's nonsense, but the defence lawyers don't want to get
> into technical arguments in court, so they just accept it and pay the
> resulting large settlement.
>
> So our advice to clients in the US is to fix every one of those
> redundant links (and all other false positives). There is no
> accessibility barrier, but they make you more vulnerable to spurious
> ADA claims. In countries with a more reasonable legal system (just
> about everywhere else except North Korea) you can afford to ignore the
> redundant links.
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>