Re: 4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation - use of right angle brackets

The greater sign is a typical breadcrumb sign used on many sites as a
hierarchy indicator, see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadcrumb_%28navigation%29 . Having it
announced as "greater" seems appropriate. I found other examples here:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/breadcrumb-navigation-examined-best-practices-examples/.
Most of the time something arrow-like is being used.

I found no indication of accessibility users complaining about breadcrumbs.
Do you have any indications of such problems? What alternative symbol would
you suggest?

Regards,
Silvia.

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 4:00 AM, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>
>