RE: technique to overcome meaningful link text

I think given these ideas we can make a slight adjustment to the SC.

 

<current>

2.4.5 Each programmatic reference to another
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/appendixA.html#deliveryunitdef> delivery
unit or to another location in the same delivery unit, is associated with
text describing the destination. 

</current>

<proposed1>

2.4.5 Each programmatic reference to another
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/appendixA.html#deliveryunitdef> delivery
unit or to another location in the same delivery unit, is programmatically
associated with text describing the destination. 

</proposed1>

Making the association between the link and its description "programmatic"
will allow designers to provide meaningful text either in hidden or visual
form, depending on their circumstances. Then we can provide ways to
accomplish this in the techniques, whether using Don's suggestions, or my
suggestions or others.I would be ok with this compromise and I think most of
the blind users I work with would also.

David MacDonald

.Access empowers people
            .barriers disable them.

www.eramp.com

  _____  

From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of John M Slatin
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 11:07 AM
To: Loretta Guarino Reid; David MacDonald; WCAG
Subject: RE: technique to overcome meaningful link text

 

Loretta wrote:

 

<blockquote... .). AT would need to provide an option to use the title text
in lists of links, to make this most effective.

</blockquote>JAWS allows users to choose between alt and title (for images
and image links) or screen text and time (for text links). Or you can choose
"longest" in both cases. Currently these are global settings, and they are
binary: you get *either* alt or titlebut not both. Same for text links:
either screen text or title, but not both.

 

I have sent a feature request to Freedom Scientific asking them to support
both/and instead of either/or, both as a global setting and as an on-demand
option.

 

I'm not sure about Window-Eyes, HAL, or Home Page Reader. Will try to check.

However, I believe the techniques Loretta and Michael describe *should* be
sufficient because they *should* be supported by AT.

 

UT Austin is testing a new version of its home page, and they are using a
CSS stye class="nodisplaytext" which seems to make the text invisible but
audible in JAWS.

I'm going to ask them if they'll show me the style sheet 'cause I don't
understand how it works and would like to!

 

John

 

 

Joh


"Good design is accessible design." 
John Slatin, Ph.D.
Director, Accessibility Institute
University of Texas at Austin
FAC 248C
1 University Station G9600
Austin, TX 78712
ph 512-495-4288, f 512-495-4524
email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu
web  <http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility/>
http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility/

 

 

 


  _____  


From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Loretta Guarino Reid
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 9:43 am
To: David MacDonald; WCAG
Subject: Re: technique to overcome meaningful link text

As a technique, I don't really like this much. Images of text can't satisfy
lots of UA requirements for text, like the ability to resize the text or
control the font used.

Fundamentally, though, I get the sense that the group is converging on
requiring meaningful link text, directly associated with the link, not in
its  surrounding context. We would opt for having a verbose reading of the
links as the page is being read (which is what would happen with this
technique).

In that case, shouldn't we recommend using the title of the link to specify
the complete text? (In PDF, we can provide Alt text for the link, but we
need an HTML technique, too). AT would need to provide an option to use the
title text in lists of links, to make this most effective.

Loretta


On 1/12/06 4:06 PM, "David MacDonald" <befree@magma.ca> wrote:


I think this technique (below) could also be used for single word links like
"more" and "click here" in those instances when one word links might be
appropriate. 
 
If this is ok with the group I think we could overcome the "justified"
exceptions for meaningful links.
 
This is a proposed technique for how to create meaningful link text for SC
2.4.5. when there is an array of links to multiple versions of the same
content. I hope this overcomes the exception for arrays of links. 
 
1)       Create images of text that say "HTML", "PDF", "XML" etc.
2)       Create links from the images of text to the corresponding
documents.
3)       Create "alt text" using meaningful descriptions of the
corresponding destinations for each of the images.
I think the technique could also be written in a non-technology specific
format.
Regards
David MacDonald
.Access empowers people
           .barriers disable them.
www.eramp.com  <http://www.eramp.com> <http://www.eramp.com>