4 ms·

At one point does accessibility decrease accessibility? I'm all for making improvements in the name of accessibility, but not so much about making things worse

by rendaw 1y ago

At one point does accessibility decrease accessibility? I'm all for making improvements in the name of accessibility, but not so much about making things worse to support the least common denominator of screen readers. If people are going to need to change their behavior, wouldn't it be better to suggest some aria annotation instead?

hombre_fatal 1y ago
Aria tags are something you think might have more developer compliance than better anchor text? Most of us never wrote an aria attribute in our life. But I haven't used "click here" as anchor text in 20 years because it sucks for these reasons.
- rovr138 1y ago
  I think the links just need to be longer vs a couple of words. We are used to small areas, but the problem is that you end up with 'click here', like in the example. But if you linked the whole text, it's basically the same thing as adding aria. IMO, most cases that I see using aria seem like a fix after the fact vs doing it the right way. There are use cases for it, but in the case of the example, making the whole sentence a link would be good. Regarding screen readers, you can have it read all links, which is why the 'click here' is an issue. So you want a balance. Change "for x, <a href=...>click here</a>" "<a href=...>for x, click here</a>"... ta-da? You need to optimize for people using accessibility tools, but also for the people looking at the site...
  - Izkata 1y ago
    > Regarding screen readers, you can have it read all links, which is why the 'click here' is an issue. So you want a balance. Change "for x, <a href=...>click here</a>" "<a href=...>for x, click here</a>"... ta-da? No, you want the verb to be whatever "x" does or is for, not the action taken to get there. The action taken to get there is the same for all links regardless of what they're for. So this is a bad example simply because we don't know what "x" is so we don't know what a better verb would be.
    - rovr138 1y ago
      It depends on x, right? For example, it could end up being, 'for learning more about Hacker news click here'. I think that signals to visitor using screen readers and without, what that is and how to interact with it. If someone with a screen reader is jumping through links, they'll get context for the link. A visitor not using it will see get the context since it's all highlighted together. Someone using a keyboard, the outline will highlight all of it. I am just a keyboard user. I have no idea if this is the best way. But I think it gives the same info to everyone.
CoffeeOnWrite 1y ago
Links are for clicking. Click here is superfluous noise.
- wvenable 1y ago
  I have this fight with some developers all the time. Users are dumb, impaired, fearful animals and if you don't spell it out to them they have no idea what to do. "Click here" might be superfluous noise but that doesn't mean it's not necessary (sometimes).
  - mitchdoogle 1y ago
    Put something better. "Visit our site", "View Results", "Download File", "Next Page". Almost anything is better than "Click here". "Click here" is the result of laziness - think about what the button does for a couple minutes and you should be able to come up with better text
    - danlitt 1y ago
      Note that all of these would fail the criteria in TFA - either as verb phrases, or not clearly describing the link target.
  - cube00 1y ago
    > I have this fight with some developers all the time. Please consider reading the rest of this thread before you keep fighting developers to do it your way. After that if you still want "click here" that's your call but at least be open to better alternatives rather this dismissing this discussion.
    - wvenable 1y ago
      I'm not explicitly talking about just "click here". I'd say it has it's place sometimes but it's rare. But a lot of developers have issues with redundancy or explicitly spelling things out for users for things that are "obvious". With enough experience you learn that what is obvious is less obvious than it appears.
madeofpalk 1y ago
> accessibility decrease accessibility accessibility is usability. build products that are usable by people. that's all.
DonHopkins 1y ago
Everything in user interface design is a trade-off. There are many usability and accessibility and readability and design factors that every interface designer must balance and trade off against each other. So of course usability can decrease usability, readability can decrease readability, accessibility can decrease accessibility, beauty can decrease beauty, and all those desirable traits can decrease each other, because there is no one single "technique" you just apply mindlessly to achieve any of those goals. There are many many ways of achieving (and ruining) each of those goals, and you constantly have to balance and trade them all off against each other. If somebody is so lazy and careless and poorly educated that they always use links saying "click here" as a solution to their problem of not being creative enough to come up with a better more descriptive link, I can guarantee you 100% of the time they are not going to give a flying fuck about aria or even have a clue what it is.

by rendaw 1y ago

hombre_fatal 1y ago

Aria tags are something you think might have more developer compliance than better anchor text? Most of us never wrote an aria attribute in our life. But I haven't used "click here" as anchor text in 20 years because it sucks for these reasons.

rovr138 1y ago
I think the links just need to be longer vs a couple of words. We are used to small areas, but the problem is that you end up with 'click here', like in the example. But if you linked the whole text, it's basically the same thing as adding aria. IMO, most cases that I see using aria seem like a fix after the fact vs doing it the right way. There are use cases for it, but in the case of the example, making the whole sentence a link would be good. Regarding screen readers, you can have it read all links, which is why the 'click here' is an issue. So you want a balance. Change "for x, <a href=...>click here</a>" "<a href=...>for x, click here</a>"... ta-da? You need to optimize for people using accessibility tools, but also for the people looking at the site...
- Izkata 1y ago
  > Regarding screen readers, you can have it read all links, which is why the 'click here' is an issue. So you want a balance. Change "for x, <a href=...>click here</a>" "<a href=...>for x, click here</a>"... ta-da? No, you want the verb to be whatever "x" does or is for, not the action taken to get there. The action taken to get there is the same for all links regardless of what they're for. So this is a bad example simply because we don't know what "x" is so we don't know what a better verb would be.
  - rovr138 1y ago
    It depends on x, right? For example, it could end up being, 'for learning more about Hacker news click here'. I think that signals to visitor using screen readers and without, what that is and how to interact with it. If someone with a screen reader is jumping through links, they'll get context for the link. A visitor not using it will see get the context since it's all highlighted together. Someone using a keyboard, the outline will highlight all of it. I am just a keyboard user. I have no idea if this is the best way. But I think it gives the same info to everyone.

CoffeeOnWrite 1y ago

Links are for clicking. Click here is superfluous noise.

wvenable 1y ago
I have this fight with some developers all the time. Users are dumb, impaired, fearful animals and if you don't spell it out to them they have no idea what to do. "Click here" might be superfluous noise but that doesn't mean it's not necessary (sometimes).
- mitchdoogle 1y ago
  Put something better. "Visit our site", "View Results", "Download File", "Next Page". Almost anything is better than "Click here". "Click here" is the result of laziness - think about what the button does for a couple minutes and you should be able to come up with better text
  - danlitt 1y ago
    Note that all of these would fail the criteria in TFA - either as verb phrases, or not clearly describing the link target.
- cube00 1y ago
  > I have this fight with some developers all the time. Please consider reading the rest of this thread before you keep fighting developers to do it your way. After that if you still want "click here" that's your call but at least be open to better alternatives rather this dismissing this discussion.
  - wvenable 1y ago
    I'm not explicitly talking about just "click here". I'd say it has it's place sometimes but it's rare. But a lot of developers have issues with redundancy or explicitly spelling things out for users for things that are "obvious". With enough experience you learn that what is obvious is less obvious than it appears.

madeofpalk 1y ago

> accessibility decrease accessibility accessibility is usability. build products that are usable by people. that's all.

DonHopkins 1y ago

Everything in user interface design is a trade-off. There are many usability and accessibility and readability and design factors that every interface designer must balance and trade off against each other. So of course usability can decrease usability, readability can decrease readability, accessibility can decrease accessibility, beauty can decrease beauty, and all those desirable traits can decrease each other, because there is no one single "technique" you just apply mindlessly to achieve any of those goals. There are many many ways of achieving (and ruining) each of those goals, and you constantly have to balance and trade them all off against each other. If somebody is so lazy and careless and poorly educated that they always use links saying "click here" as a solution to their problem of not being creative enough to come up with a better more descriptive link, I can guarantee you 100% of the time they are not going to give a flying fuck about aria or even have a clue what it is.