Linked Text and Web Accessibility
Jul. 8th, 2011 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreRick asked last night why I linked a whole bunch of text on a page rather than just the "link here" part of the sentence.
It's a good question.
For those who are using screen readers and are scanning through links, the linked text is read aloud. Therefore, make links useful to someone who is trying to scan through your code and wants to know whether to visit that link or not.
Thus, "For awesome information about web accessibility, link here" is semantically different to a blind user than "For awesome information about web accessibility, link here."
If you want to get more accessible than just the text part of the link, there are other ways of doing it, like adding a title in the <a>. For the basic form, though, you can just change what part of your sentence you create the link around.
Here's some W3C commentary about accessbility.
If you really want to blow your mind for a day, put on a blindfold and turn on voiceover on your computer (Command-F5 on a Mac if you have it enabled). I have to work this way from time to time (though I skip the blindfold) and it's harder than it sounds.
In Safari's preferences, go to the Advanced preferences and check "Press Tab to highlight each item on a webpage" to get the aforementioned spoken links as you tab through the page.
It's a good question.
For those who are using screen readers and are scanning through links, the linked text is read aloud. Therefore, make links useful to someone who is trying to scan through your code and wants to know whether to visit that link or not.
Thus, "For awesome information about web accessibility, link here" is semantically different to a blind user than "For awesome information about web accessibility, link here."
If you want to get more accessible than just the text part of the link, there are other ways of doing it, like adding a title in the <a>. For the basic form, though, you can just change what part of your sentence you create the link around.
Here's some W3C commentary about accessbility.
If you really want to blow your mind for a day, put on a blindfold and turn on voiceover on your computer (Command-F5 on a Mac if you have it enabled). I have to work this way from time to time (though I skip the blindfold) and it's harder than it sounds.
In Safari's preferences, go to the Advanced preferences and check "Press Tab to highlight each item on a webpage" to get the aforementioned spoken links as you tab through the page.