4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation - use of right angle brackets

Section 4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation (under Common idioms without
dedicated elements [1])

 encourages the use of the right angle bracket to indicate a
breadcrumb navigation trail:

<p>
  <a href="/">Main</a> >
  <a href="/products/">Products</a> >
  <a href="/products/dishwashers/">Dishwashers</a> >
  <a>Second hand</a>
 </p>

The use of > in this context does not appear to be a good practice to
promote as the angle bracket is a symbol that depending on user agent
(AT in this case) is typically announced as "greater" or not announced
in this context. Either way it is not clearly convyed that its a
breadcrumb trail.


 It may be that this is not an issue for users who consume the angle
brackets in this context and the pattern of its use conveys that it is
a breadcrumb trail. If it is a problem I suggest that this example
would need to be revisited to see if we can come up with something
that is more useful to a wider range of users.

[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/common-idioms.html#common-idioms

-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner

Received on Saturday, 26 January 2013 17:01:26 UTC