RE: Seeking *opinions* as part of a larger research issue.

> OMG, that is the worst SC known to man, as it is both vague, broad, and open to all sorts of interpretations.

 

Fully agree with you!

 

> But the real issue is that what it *appears* to be conveying is in fact not true

 

Right, I probably wasn’t clear but this is what I was asking. If you tag a sample URL as a hyperlink, or even style it to look like it’s active, isn’t that a violation of 1.3.1? You’ve created, or created the impression, that the text is something it is not.

 

I consider it like using heading tags for formatting.

 

Matt

 

From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> 
Sent: January 16, 2023 5:28 PM
To: matt.garrish@gmail.com; Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com>
Cc: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>; public-epub3@w3.org; public-publishingcg@w3.org; epub-higher-education@lists.daisy.org
Subject: Re: Seeking *opinions* as part of a larger research issue.

 

Thanks Matt!

Your suggestion of using <code> tags is both interesting and helpful. Will mull that one over a bit more and take back to the team.

As to whether this is addressed in SC 1.3.1 - OMG, that is the worst SC known to man, as it is both vague, broad, and open to all sorts of interpretations. That SC normatively states:

 

Information,  <https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#dfn-structure> structure, and  <https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#dfn-relationships> relationships conveyed through  <https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#dfn-presentation> presentation can be  <https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#dfn-programmatically-determinable> programmatically determined or are available in text.

 

Now, the issue is multi-fold here: first, even if www.FakeUrl.com <http://www.FakeUrl.com>  isn't authored with anchor tags, the "fakeurl.com <http://fakeurl.com> " bit visible on screen *IS* "...available in text" - text that even screen readers would hear. So it's not a failure in MHO. 

 

And in the inverse - .if the text string links to nothing but still appears and acts like a link - it would be hard to argue that it wasn't conveying *something* via presentation that is also programmatically available due to the <a> element being used (styled or unstyled, as user-agents or CSS generally styles the <a> element differently than non-link text). But the real issue is that what it *appears* to be conveying is in fact not true - but the "is it true and/or accurate" part is not part of the normative text...


But most importantly, when a content author writes "www.FakeUrl.com <http://www.FakeUrl.com> " there is an author-intent there that is not explicitly code-determinable: It *MAY* be conveying a relationship through presentation (i.e it is an actual link - unstyled it would be blue with the text underlined), or it may just be conveying a text string in a format that has no specific relationship to anything else, but is instead just an editorial example. Parsing engines and accessibility testing tools could never be fully sure of the author intent (which is why your suggestion of using <code>  piqued my interest, as it would be one method for the author to convey the intent - at least partially).

I think I may take this back to Avneesh and the ePub Accessibility TF - there may be some real meat on this bone to craft a new requirement (or at least a Best Practice) around.

JF

 

On Mon, Jan 16, 2023 at 2:58 PM <matt.garrish@gmail.com <mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi John,

 

> should those text strings STILL be marked up as hyperlinks?

 

Technically, you can markup them up as inactive hyperlinks (a without an href), but your first example doesn’t really even qualify as that. I wouldn’t do anything special with dummy URLs, to be honest, except maybe mark them with code tags.

 

Doesn’t this fall under 1.3.1 info and relationships, though? When you have text that only looks like a URL but is not meant to be followed, marking it as a hyperlink would seem to violate the principle (i.e., it adds info that doesn’t actually exist). I don’t know if that SC makes unnecessary tagging a violation – I’ve always seen it enforced for adding missing structure – but there’s an argument that it should capture misapplied tagging. It’s probably not something we’d take up in the EPUB accessibility spec, as it’s not specific to ebooks.

 

Agree with everything you’ve already said about the annoyance and confusion factors. I’d only add that it’s annoying to everyone, not just persons with disabilities. It makes you wonder if there is some reason why the link is there and whether you should follow it just to see where it goes. 

 

Matt

 

From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca <mailto:john@foliot.ca> > 
Sent: January 16, 2023 2:10 PM
To: public-epub3@w3.org <mailto:public-epub3@w3.org> ; public-publishingcg@w3.org <mailto:public-publishingcg@w3.org> ; epub-higher-education@lists.daisy.org <mailto:epub-higher-education@lists.daisy.org> 
Subject: Seeking *opinions* as part of a larger research issue.

 

The use-cases are pretty simple:
1) an ePub book has text content on the page that is a URL (i.e. it quite literally reads "www.examplesite.com <http://www.examplesite.com> "). The URL does not (and is not expected to) actually resolve anywhere, it's just an example or placeholder text.
2) an ePub book has content on the page that was once an active hyperlink, but the link no longer exists.

The question is: for both of those use-cases (where the "print" is offering up a text string formatted as an URL, but there is no actual URL to resolve to), should those text strings STILL be marked up as hyperlinks?

From a strict conformance to WCAG perspective… well, WCAG is silent on this specific topic (and so it seems is ePub Accessibility 1.1).
I strongly suspect that there are arguments for both sides of the discussion (“should all printed URL’s be active links”?), but I am currently backing the perspective that having users (readers) follow inactive links (or presenting users with inactive links to follow),
a) potentially places negative cognitive strain and confusion on some users,
b) potentially demands unnecessary interactions (clicking a useless link) that could be problematic for mobility impaired users, and
c) delivers zero quality for any effort invested by the user.

My questions are:
1) do you agree or disagree with my reasoning? (If you disagree, might I ask for your counter-argument please?)

2) have you encountered this before? If you have, can you tell me what you ended up doing? In particular, if you work in EDU (office of accommodation, etc.) where ePub remediation is part of your work/tasks, do you have a 'standard' policy or solution to either of these use cases?

3) any other thoughts or comments? (Note: we're looking for a solution that is also scalable, FWIW)

Thanks in advance for any feedback!



JF

-- 

John Foliot | 
Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility | 
W3C Accessibility Standards Contributor |

"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." - Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"




 

-- 

John Foliot | 
Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility | 
W3C Accessibility Standards Contributor |

"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." - Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"