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

I'm fairly far out on the food chain, mostly working with document 
creation and advising others on content, esthetic and technical aspects 
of creating documents in all formats.

I think there should be a distinction between an 'informational' address 
and a live link. Addresses noted in running text should not be live 
unless there's an immediate, relevant reason for it. Documents that look 
like old-old-school web pages (remember the ones that had 200 link in 
1000 words of running content?) are difficult to navigate even for abled 
users. Things like bibliographies with more link text (often those 
endless journal and other 'deep' links) than static are usually a mess 
as well, sacrificing readability and text usability for a (false?) sense 
of functionality.

I'm not at all sure how to implement this, in either practical, 
standardized or automated form. But links should be (1) easy to use, for 
adaptive readers as well as standard ones; (2) easy to implement and 
validate — maybe make that 'easy to select' at conversion time, and (3) 
completely optional, so that there is no requirement to make documents 
into link minefields.


/  —Jim/


On 1/16/2023 11:09 AM, John Foliot wrote:
> 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

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