[CSS21] WAI Issue 3: Inaccessibility of Index to CSS2.1 / Violations of WCAG [DRAFT]

[Reviewer's Note: this post refers to the Candidate Recommendation draft 
of CSS 2.1,
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-CSS21-20070719
comments upon which are due by 20 December 2007]

The index for CSS2.1

<http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/indexlist.html>

replicates the inaccessibility of the index to CSS2, in that it 
uses chapter / section numbers as hyperlinks without so much as a 
title to indicate to which entry in the index the repetitious 
numeric hypertext points -- this reviewer gave up counting when he 
reached 250 instances of the hyperlink text "1", which only took the 
reviewer into the "I" section of the index (on the target that hyperlinks 
to the definition of quote <integer> unquote.

Words cannot express how frustrating such an experience can be, and how 
useless it renders the index to anyone experiencing the page aurally;

It also violates the W3C's own Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 
(WCAG) -- in particular, Guideline 13, where it states:

<q 
cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/">
13.1 Clearly identify the target of each link. [Priority 2] 

Link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out 
of context -- either on its own or as part of a sequence of links. 
Link text should also be terse. For example, in HTML, write 
"Information about version 4.3" instead of "click here". In 
addition to clear link text, content developers may further clarify
the target of a link with an informative link title (e.g., in HTML,
the "title" attribute).

Techniques for checkpoint 13.1
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/#tech-meaningful-links>
</q>

WCAG 1.0 defines quote Link text unquote as

<q
cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#link-text">
The rendered text content of a link. 
</q>

[Reviewer's Question: should the WCAG2 overflow technique be mentioned as 
a concrete proposed solution, AS WELL AS advising the use of "title" for 
differentiation of synonymous links that do NOT point to the same target]

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Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 03:05:05 UTC