WCAG 2.0 Comment Submission

Name: Jason White
Email: jasonw@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au
Affiliation: 
Document: W2
Item Number: Success Criterion 2.4.4
Part of Item: 
Comment Type: technical
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
It isn\'t clear from the sc or the definition of \"programmatically determined

link context\" how far around the link this context extends. If it is bounded

by the next higher-level structural component of the content (e.g., the parent

element of the link in the structure tree) then it is a different requirement

than it would be under an interpretation, at the opposite end of the spectrum,

whereby the whole page can qualify as the link context. The latter

interpretation would tend to make the requirement trivial.



Without a clearer specification of what the link context encompasses, it is

difficult to evaluate the importance of this success criterion or to decide

how much of an accessibility issue it presents. For instance, if the purpose

of a link cannot be determined from a large portion of the page then that

would be more of a difficulty to users than if it cannot be determined from

the immediately enclosing structural element.



Further, contrary to the suggestion in the editorial note, I don\'t think this

issue should be characterized as presenting a problem for assistive

technologies. Rather, it presents a problem to users as it determines how much

associated context they have to read in order to discover the purpose or

destination of a link.

Proposed Change:
Define \"programmatically determined link context\" in a more precise, testable

way, before deciding on the priority of this success criterion.

Received on Wednesday, 23 May 2007 03:04:34 UTC