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-- Accessibility and Usability
---- Accessible Links


pageoneresults - 5:25 pm on Feb 19, 2006 (gmt 0)


I would humbly like to take issue with my esteemed co-moderator.

I am glad that you humbly did! :)

Okay, here's the situation. A client asks how can we make the URIs visible when a visitor to the site prints a page? I ask, "all links?" and the client says no, "just the reference links".

I do an hour or so of online research and can't find anything that specifically states what the best practice is for this scenario.

So, I tell the client. "we have three options". And those were...

  1. Create a new line with just the reference and spell out the URI.
  2. Place the URI reference in parenthesis next to the anchor text.
  3. List an outline of references at the bottom of the page and spell out the URIs there.

In the above case, the client chose the 3rd option and we created an <h2>Document References</h2> with a numbered list under it that coincides with the links in the document. For example, link one coincides with the first link in paragraph one.

It has been something that has bugged me for years. I used to print out quite a bit of technical stuff. Many of the links in those documents were invisible and it required me to do some additional legwork when interpreting those documents.

Now, let's talk about the lack of association. In the first example, I'm not too certain that I have broken the association between the two. In fact, I think I've solidifed it as the link is set up in a way where it uses a <br> to force the URI to a second line. So, we have one element, containing two lines, I would think the association is more prominent?

Have others been faced with this issue? What exactly have you done? Or, can you provide links to one of the authoritative resources that discuss the correct way to implement a solution for this?

I'm referring strictly to links within content. Not every link on the page. Just those that are referenced in the main body of your pages.


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