RE: A tag looking like a BUTTON tag. Fail?

I sort of agree but come from a different angle. 

The HTML mark-up for elements should provide the flexibility to style the button or link in a fashion to provide the require style and semantics users require or want. A button or link tag should be the structure. What the actual structure looks like at the end of the day should be done via CSS. If I have not stated before. A lot of issues in relation to commonly used elements like menus, buttons, combo boxes all could be easily resolved if the actual HTML standards provided the basic structure with the flexibility of styling which designers are requiring. There are to many hacks in the wild which provide poor UX to the disable community and broader.

Using a non-technical simplistic example: A door has certain properties. The style of the door changes depending on the width, height, the type of door used, ETC. But everyone knows it is a door by the basic structure. 


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-----Original Message-----
From: Giacomo Petri <giacomopetri89@gmail.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, 29 May 2019 7:15 AM
To: Bristow, Alan <Alan.Bristow@elections.ca>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: A tag looking like a BUTTON tag. Fail?

Hi Alan, hello everyone,

from my perspective, styling links to look like buttons is not an accessibility failure.
I would agree with you that styling LINK elements using the “default” underline CSS property and styling BUTTON elements using different borders and background colors would be very helpful in order to easily recognize and predict their behavior, but this will “limit” considerably the designers ideas; accessibility should be synonym of innovation and not limitation.

For users without disabilities there is no way to understand in advance if an element will behave as a link or a button, except moving the pointer device hover it and reviewing the destination (same can be performed using the keyboard and moving the focus on it); using a screen reader instead, the element role will be properly announced. 
I would say that a wide range of users will encounter the same “difficulties" perceiving this element as a link or a button.

Maybe we should think about people with cognitive disorders or attention deficit disorders; probably, an element styled as a BUTTON would be more evident in terms of UX, compared with a LINK. Maybe, the key to understanding this topic is about what we want to visually convey instead of the relationship between ROLE and UX.

Giacomo Petri

 

> Il giorno 28 mag 2019, alle ore 22:07, Bristow, Alan <Alan.Bristow@elections.ca> ha scritto:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Links styled to look like buttons o_O
> 
> Is there anywhere in WCAG where this practice is defined as acceptable/poor/fail?
> 
> In 'Resilient web design', https://resilientwebdesign.com/ Jeremy Keith talks about 'material honesty'.
> 
> The styling of A tags so they end up looking like BUTTONs must be one of the most common failures of this.
> 
> In the past I have considered 1.3.1:
> "
> Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
> -WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
> "
> noting that what is visually a 'button' and so semantically should be a BUTTON tag, when programmatically determined (by AT) is found to be an A tag, so breaking WCAG 1.3.1.
> 
> Are there more precise WCAGs that may better support my conclusion?
> 
> Am I wrong to use 1.3.1 in this way in the first place?
> 
> I would be interested in your views and thank you in advance for any.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Alan
> 
> PS: Useful related article:
> Adam Silver - 'But sometimes links look like buttons (and buttons look like links)'
> - 
> https://medium.com/simple-human/but-sometimes-links-look-like-buttons-

> and-buttons-look-like-links-9b371c57b3d2
> 
> Alan Bristow
> Web Programmer
> Policy and Public Affairs
> Elections Canada
> Desk 9-A-053
> 30 Victoria Street, Gatineau, QC K1A 0M6 alan.bristow@elections.ca
> Tel.: 819-939-2232
> 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 29 May 2019 23:08:07 UTC