Re: Differentiating links from normal text

Although for some languages and scripts underlining text has semantic
meaning and may represent something other than a link. So underlining by
itself is likewise a less than desireable way of indicating the presence of
a link.

Likewise underlining can obscure diacritics below a base character
impacting on legibility of text. So skipping ink or positioning underline
sufficiently below text may be concerns although this In turn may require
adjustments to leading .

Andrew


On Sunday, 28 January 2018, Userite <richard@userite.com> wrote:

> Hi Poornima,
> There definitely needs to be some TEXTUAL differentiation if the link text
> is within a text part of the page, you must not rely simply on a change of
> colour.  – However if the link is part on a clearly defined navigation menu
> it does not need textual identification because the context already makes
> it clear that it is a link.
>
> So for your problem you need to decide if the list of links is obvious
> from its context.  If your page says something like “Here is a list of
> links to useful info” and is immediately followed by a numbered or bulleted
> list then you could probably get away without the need to underline the
> text in each list item.  Your designer is probably correct in saying that a
> block of underlined list items looks too cumbersome.  To be safe though I
> would suggest that you underline the call to action but leave the rest of
> the link text not underlined.
>
> Another option is to include an HTML arrow at the end of the link (try
> &#187; or &raquo; )
>
> Clear  identification of link text is essential for WCAG compliance.
>
> Regards
>
> Richard
>
> www.website-accessibility.com
>
> *From:* Subramanian, Poornima (PCL) <psubramanian@hagroup.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, January 26, 2018 10:10 PM
> *To:* w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> *Subject:* Differentiating links from normal text
>
>
> Hi, I would appreciate any design suggestion regarding “differentiating
> links from normal text” for the below scenario -
>
>
>
> I was aware the WCAG recommendations on the links (i) no use of color
> alone for links (ii) highlight links in different formatting while in
> blocks of text
>
>
>
> In one of our test pages, there is a list of items with each item shows
> the title, date, a call-to-action button (designed together as a link).
> Here, the page contain mostly links in the form of list items.
>
>
>
> And, the designers think underlining the links will make it look
> cumbersome visually.
>
>
>
> Couple of questions –
>
>
>
> 1.       Any design suggestions on how the links can be differentiated in
> this example to make it compliant? (e.g. bold, underline the title)
>
> 2.      Is underlining or differentiating the links must or nice-to-have
> for WCAG compliance?
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Poornima
>
>
>
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>
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-- 
Andrew Cunningham
andj.cunningham@gmail.com