paul haine Posted…

Isn't this the sort of thing the title attribute is meant for?

Russ Weakley Posted…

I am definitely not an expert on the title attribute and its support but here goes...

Some screen readers do not support the title attribute on <a> elements at all. Other screen readers, such as JAWS, support title attributes on <a> elements but need to have verbosity settings turned on. Many screen reader users do not turn this setting on as they will then be overloaded with information.

You could say that while the title attribute adds meaning to <a> elements for sighted users, at this point in time the attribute should not be used for critical information associated with <a> elements.

More importantly, for this exercise we are trying to provide additional information for screen readers, so the title attribute is not an ideal solution.

Steve Faulkner will be covering this topic in great detail at WE05.

Miraz Jordan Posted…

It seems to me that hiding the content after "More" simply reduces the usability of the page for sighted readers. Most readers scan rather than read a page so are likely to bounce from one prominent item to the next.

If they bounce from headline to headline they then have to move down and correctly identify the "More" which goes with the headline in order to get further info.

It seems more efficient to be able to bounce from link to link instead, which they could do if the full text were visible. Then readers can simply click where they are looking.

So, hiding the extra text is a handy skill, but I think it's not so useful to apply it in this way.

Eddie Sowden Posted…

I dont see the point. Why remove that text for css enabled browsers? Who says that we dont want that extra text too?
More to the point why use css to move it off the visable page, why not just give it a display:hidden?

Alessandro Posted…

Russ, really nice technique, and I guess it can give also benefits even from SEO point of view. Miraz and Eddie, I think that Russ' goal was to provide more clear links to people browsing with screen readers and text browser. People with disability perceive links in a different manner, and I believe solution like this should be a real aid. Finally, elements with display:none and visibility:hidden are in general not spoken by screen readers, that's Russ reason to having shifted text off the screen instead of just hiding it.

Miraz Jordan Posted…

Alessandro , I agree that this is a good technique and that Russ is enhancing the experience for some users. My real point is, that I think the experience of *all* users would be enhanced by having more extensive text than just "More...".

Matthijs Posted…

Some commenters are right that the extra text could be usefull for sighted readers too. But sometimes only the "more" text is wanted/allowed in the visual design of the page, for whatever reason. If the one(s) who decided on "more..." cannot be convinced that more linktext then this would be better, this technique can be used.

Darrel Posted…

An case where you'd want to actually hide the extra text from sighted users is something like this (a table):

item | PDF | DOC

item | PDF | DOC

item | PDF | DOC

which is what we have on our site. Basically long lists of documents that come in multiple formates. The above is fine and, if in a table, actually fairly accessible. However, there are times when we just want to put this inline, so instead of this:

Download our Guide to Stuff (download our Guide To Stuff in PDF format or download our Guide To Stuff in DOC format)

We can do this:

Download our Guide to Stuff (PDF, DOC)

Which is a bit easier to handle for sighted users. The main reason for using this technique is for those that use their screen readers to just read through the links, where it becomes critical that you describe the item you are linking to in each link.