What You Need To Know About Accessible Links

Below is a link to some great,  common sense accessibility advice, fifteen rules to code by- thanks to Gian Wild.  Gian rightly focuses on practical accessibility  rather than compliance with mostly outdated regulations (like the 18 year-old Section 508!) A few excerpts:

Rule 6: Restrict the number of text links on a page

This is important because users see links as a form of navigation: they know they are not on the right page so they are looking for links that will take them to where they want to go.

If there are a lot of links on a page, it makes it that much harder to navigate a site.

And of course, screen reader users can pull out all the links in a page, so if there are hundreds of links then reading through them all is a nightmare.

Ok, so how many links are too many? That’s the ‘How long is a piece of string’ question, and depends on the type of site that you have.

Just bear in mind the users that are navigating from link to link when you’re constructing your pages.

Rule 11: The case for underlining links

People expect links to be underlined. When they see underlined text they expect it to be a link (which is why you should never underline text in the online world unless you are representing a link).

WCAG2 does recommend that you underline your inline text links, but also allows developers to meet the accessibility criterion if they use a contrast ratio of 3:1 with surrounding text and providing additional visual cues on focus for links or controls where color alone is used to identify them.

This requires that your text links contrast sufficiently with surrounding text (the W3C has a list of link colors that contrast appropriately with black text and a white background) and there is an additional visual cue when the link receives mouse or keyboard focus.

This visual cue can be an underline (go on, make those links underlined!), bold, italic or increase in font size or it can be the addition of a glyph or image. It can be implemented through CSS as this only needs to be a visual indicator.

But remember to add a:focus to a:hover!

The article:
https://www.sitepoint.com/15-rules-making-accessible-links/

New York City Sets the Pace For Accessibility, Requires Conformance With Section 508

New York City takes the lead in accessibility, passing a law in March of this year requiring that its government agency websites and electronic documents meet recognized standards WCAG 2.0 and Section 508.  This is hopefully the start of a trend making the Federal mandate universal, a giant step towards accessibility- state and local governments may follow NYC’s lead, requiring contractors and even public accommodations to conform in the absence of regulations from DOJ.

 New York City becomes the first major municipality in the United States to adopt legislation mandating accessibility standards for all of its government agency websites.  Serving a population of over 8 million, the New York City government includes more than 120 agencies staffed by approximately 325,000 employees.  This legislation will have an impact on City agencies, and access for persons with disabilities to those institutions.  It may also have an impact on future website regulations impacting businesses across the country.

“New York City is an amalgamation of cultures, heritages and languages,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “That is why we strive to increase inclusivity, especially when it comes to New Yorkers with disabilities. Whether it’s creating a more accessible City website, or ensuring that events hosted by City agencies have information regarding accessibility for people with disabilities, Intros. 673-A, 683-A, 881-A and 883-A strengthen our efforts to be more inclusive.”

The legislation (Intro. 683-A) was among three disability access bills that Mayor Bill De Blasio signed into law on the same day.  In addition to mandating website protocols, the legislation requires that each City agency designate a “disability service facilitator,” and publicize, among other things, the availability of wheelchair access, communication access real-time translation, sign language interpretation, assistive listening systems, and any other accommodations to be made available for all public events.

The sweeping mandate states that agencies must adopt an "Accessible Website Protocol" within 6 months. The new City law recognizess that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA (“WCAG 2.0 AA”) is increasingly becoming the de facto standard for website accessibility, despite the continued lack of any regulations from the U.S. Department of Justice setting a legally-required standard for state and local governments under Title II of the ADA.

Under the new law, the City must establish a website protocol within 6 months that incorporates Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act,  WCAG 2.0 AA, or any “successor” standards.  The Section 508 standard currently applies to the federal government websites and electronic documents, and consists of a list of 16 requirements that are less rigorous than WCAG 2.0 AA.  But last year the Access Board proposed a rule that would, among other things, adopt WCAG 2.0 AA as the new website standard under Section 508.  Thus, if the City incorporates Section 508 in its website protocol, its agency websites may be subject to WCAG 2.0 Level AA once the final Section 508 regulations are issued.

“The City Council is committed to making New York a more inclusive City for all people to work and live,” City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said. “This package of legislation will increase language access across City websites and improve access to City services for all New Yorkers.”

Chris Frank, CEO of Accessibility In Mind, a dedicated Section 508 remediation service says "It's no surprise that NYC is being proactive in requiring government services and documents to be universally accessible- it benefits all citizens, not just handicapped ones. It's like the curb cuts that make sidewalks wheel chair-friendly- they are great for walkers and bikers as well. It only makes the city more attractive, as it adds value which everyone shares."

Sample Section 508 Audit and Primer

Here's a little primer on tagging PDFs for Section 508 compliance, just four pictures worth a thousand words each- this is from an AIM document audit:

Screenreaders like JAWS read the content of standardized "tags" in PDF documents out loud. The name of the tag informs the screenreader as to what the content is- say a top-level heading <H1>, paragraph text <P>, a table <Table>, list <L>, etc. Correctly formed, ordered tags can give a blind reader almost as much information as the sighted reader has- the screenreader can scan the page and "see" the headings, lists, navigate through tables, etc.

So accessibility is all about the quality of the tags. Let's look at the doc. Well, first off, we look at the document properties. Sorry, they are empty, screenreader can't do much with that. But it doesn't matter, because, notice in the lower left, Where it says "Tagged PDF: No"? That tells the screenreader to take a hike, won't read a thing. Kind of a red flag, accessibility-wise, I'd say:

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Easy enough to edit the meta-data and denote it as a tagged PDF, as there are some tags. Let's read!!!

First thing the screenreader would read out loud is the contents of the first tag. What do we have? look in the left column, the first tag in the document is the page number 63. Oops.... well that's not right obviously- page numbers should not be read out loud, to begin with, but we know right off we have reading order issues:

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The first section of the tag list is all page numbers. In the next section we finally get to the title page.

Below: First tag is the logo, <Figure> tag- oops....it should have "alt text" like "LA Health Plan logo" to inform our sight-impaired user. Title gag is next, I've opened it up to show what the screenreader sees, "Medi-cal Program". But the title should be tagged <H1>- this one has a <no_paragraph_style> tag that the screenreader just sees as regular paragraph text. (Note: automatic PDF checkers would "pass" this; you can tag a doc as one big <P> tag and fool them...).

Big deal, you say, but wait, it gets better:

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(What do you suppose those items to the left and outside the page are about? It is tagged content. We'll skip over it for now- certainly not content that needs to be read aloud. Sloppy tagging, at the least, hopefully just stray blank tags.The screenreader will call out "blank" and "Figure- no alternate text exists" as it passes through, doh...)

The real problem with this document, and the final slide in our lesson, comes right away after the cover page. There are NO TAGS on the body of the document. The screenreader would stop after the title page. 

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The next tags in the tag list are for the back cover, nary a tag in between.

This document is not accessible or compliant with Section 508, I guarantee it. This doc needs a complete remediation job.

Contact http://508compliantdocumentconversion.com/ ASAP!!!!

Why Use Accessibility In Mind For Your Section 508 Remediation: The AIM Difference

#1: Accessibility In Mind is a dedicated Section 508 and PDF/UA compliance service.

We are not a design/print house that does remediation on the side- remediating PDF documents, making them accessible and compliant, is our ONLY service.  Look at the home page of our competitors if you want to know what their main business is, then come back to AIM for your Section 508 work!

#2: We are not a middle-man, taking a commission and passing the work on to contractors.

When you work with AIM you are dealing DIRECTLY with Section 508 expert remediators, and paying less-- often 30-50% less-- than through other vendors. Deal direct, SAVE TIME AND MONEY!

http://accessibilityinmind.com/