Re: changing presentation of links

Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:
> 
> 
> I would say none.  Links are identifiable by being able to tab to them, 
> or by the cursor changing appearance, as well as other ways that I’m 
> probably forgetting.  There is an impact on usability, for sure, but I 
> don’t think that you’d fail 1.4.1. 

I would say that it is a serious impediment for anyone with even the 
mildest cognitive disability, including the elderly in normal mental 
health.  When combined with the tendency to use graphic links to achieve 
a custom user interface paradigm, I described the need to wave the mouse 
and look for cursor changes as "hunt the links", probably a decade ago.

For elderly users, not brought up on the web, they need a simple set of 
rules for finding links.  Reverse engineering the user interface 
paradigm is not easy for someone who has not had a lot of practice in 
doing it for many different paradigms, and neither is searching for 
links by quartering the screen looking for cursor changes.  I suspect a 
lot of younger users aren't familiar with tabbing between links.

Also, I would consider usability to be a pre-condition for accessibility.

-- 
David Woolley
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Received on Thursday, 8 November 2012 23:04:24 UTC