RE: Buttons styled as links and links styled as buttons

I will also add that web accessibility conformance was not considered at all. 

Fails WCAG terribly. 



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-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Weil <peter.weil@wisc.edu> 
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2021 11:46 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Buttons styled as links and links styled as buttons

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I agree with much that has been said here. There’s no easy answer, and perhaps we’ve enabled designers to get away with too much for too long.

But at what point does creating confusing UX generate a need for a guideline or best practice? Shouldn't we try to convey to users that clicking an element will take them to a new page so they know which key to press? Or do we say that there are too many gray areas that we just can’t do it now?

I’m guessing that most or all of us on this list would want to do better than "as long as [users] are not completely lost and dismayed” — that doesn’t seem like a very high bar.


> On Nov 19, 2021, at 9:14 AM, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Anecdotally as well, on the problem for sighted keyboard users "if I'm on a link that appears to be a button, and I press SPACE, then my page scrolls instead", I spoke to a few keyboard users ages ago that mentioned this, but then also mentioned that while it can be annoying/surprising when that happens, they know to then just scroll back and use ENTER instead...so it's not like they're then completely lost and dismayed.


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Peter Weil
Web Developer, University Marketing
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Received on Tuesday, 23 November 2021 00:14:35 UTC