- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 14:28:48 -0700
- To: "David MacDonald" <befree@magma.ca>
- Cc: "'Ben Caldwell'" <caldwell@trace.wisc.edu>, <michaelc@watchfire.com>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
On Wednesday, August 6, 2003, at 10:58 AM, David MacDonald wrote: > So I recommend that we not justify any use ambiguous link names. Kibitzing: Such a requirement basically says that all links must make sense when taken out of context -- this is a bad thing if we are also emphasizing the importance of structure in documents. If we say that document structure is important and you must use it, and then we say that ALSO the page must be usable WITHOUT structure, we are asking an awful lot. Something like this: <section> <h>Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours</h> <p>Blah blah blah</p> <p><a href="http://amazon.example.com/blahblah">Buy it!</a></p> </section> ...is not ambiguous. From context, it makes perfect sense what is being presented here. Likewise: <dl> <dt>Kynn Bartlett</dt> <dd><a href="mailto:kynn@idyllmtn.com">Email</a>, <a href="http://kynn.com/">Website</a></dd> <dt>David MacDonald</dt> <dd><a href="mailto:befree@magma.ca">Email</a> </dl> ...is not ambiguous either. In both cases, the context provides meaning to the link. Removing the context -- as assistive technologies have been doing -- is not a proper solution for accessibility's sake. In fact, it is a practice which is harmful to accessibility. Constructing an outline based on headings is a good thing. Constructing such an outline and then adding links in is also a good thing. Even providing a straight list of links is reasonable, although not particularly useful since context is removed. However, Web developers should not be required to support this third option -- a flat list of links titles -- because that is not how markup is meant to function. Sometimes, context can be removed. Other times it cannot. The heading tags (<h1> ... <h6> or <h>) are designed to be able to abstract document structure in such a manner. The <a> tag is most definitely not built this way, at least when it comes to href links. (A list of ANCHORS, formed with <a name>, on the other hand, is a good idea -- and such anchors should probably have title attributes attached. Sadly, though, this is not currently supported by user agents, is it?) I caution you to very seriously reconsider the notion of requiring pages to "make sense" with vital context -- including accessibility elements and attributes -- removed from the presentation (as with lists of links). Such a practice is ultimately harmful to the cause of accessibility because (a) it can result in poor UI design, (b) it can result in rejection of accessibility by informed Web developers, (c) it encourages a practice which goes against the idea of structured markup, and (d) it does not encourage the assistive technology vendors to improve their abilities to generate document abstracts. --Kynn -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://kynn.com Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com Author, CSS in 24 Hours http://cssin24hours.com Inland Anti-Empire Blog http://blog.kynn.com/iae Shock & Awe Blog http://blog.kynn.com/shock
Received on Wednesday, 6 August 2003 17:36:32 UTC