RE: Underlining to denote links?

Subject: RE: Underlining to denote links?
From: Tom Murrell <trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 06:39:08 -0700 (PDT)

--- bryan -dot- westbrook -at- amd -dot- com wrote:
> The time change is really slowing me down today. Usually, I'm up on my
> soapbox preaching universal accessibility. I got so caught up in the
> technical theory of the question that I forgot about the needs of the user.

No need for self-flagellation as far as I'm concerned. <g> We all get caught up
in the technical aspects of things at times and forget that something else
might be equally, or more, important.

> Anyway, now that I've finished with the self-flagellation, I actually do
> have another point to raise on a related note. What about borders around
> graphics that are links on HTML pages? Do most readers know how to identify
> a graphic that is a potential link or pass their pointer over them all just
> to see? Is this an unreasonable expectation? Are most links duplicated in
> the text somewhere anyway (I usually use a linked caption below mine)?

Your caption link below is one good way to help the visually impaired find
links in graphics. I'm not aware of a "universal standard" that uses borders
for linked graphics in the way the underlines have been standard for
hyperlinked text. WAI simply recommends alternatives to allow the visually or
cognitively challenged other means of accessing the same content and leaves the
implementation to the developer.

Here, we tend to use both 'alt' text and 'title' text to identify a graphic
with a link, the 'title' text going into the link itself. But we don't tend to
use graphics for links very often as I prefer text because it is visually less
equivocal especially when it is formatted to stand out someway in the text.




=====
Tom Murrell
Lead Technical Writer
Alliance Data Systems
Columbus, Ohio
mailto:trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com
Personal Web Page - http://home.columbus.rr.com/murrell/

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