Separators required.

but pretty or long winded?

[SuzyUK]

I'm guilty :o

Source [w3.org]

10.5 Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links.

so usability guidelines tell us to separate the links with more than just whitespace, that's Ok, most people do that like the bottom of this page, which uses the pipe character.. but what about those breadcrumb trails and the right double angled brackets or other fancy ascii characters?

here's a sample of what some of them sound like:
Character - JAWS output

¦ - vertical bar 
: - colon 
> - greater 
< - less 
- - dash 
» - right double angle bracket 
— - em dash 
~ - tilde 
• - bullet 
· - dot 
§ - section 

some of them are user setting based but it makes me think, imagine a long breadcrumb trail seperated with » or worse »» imagine having to listen through all that!

Suzy

[DrDoc]

What is the mid dot called?

[pageoneresults]

Solution?

div.footer ul li{display:inline;padding:0 2px;}

<div class="footer"
<ul>
<li><a href=""></a></li><li><a href=""></a></li><li><a href=""></a></li>
</ul>
</div>

CSS shortened to illustrate.

[Span]

...breadcrumb trail seperated with » or worse »» imagine having to listen through all that!

OMG. One of the sites I maintain has 500 hand coded pages with breadcrumb trails that have up to five left double angle brackets in them.

And JAWS seems to leave no user agent string.

[bedlam]

Solution?

div.footer ul li{display:inline;padding:0 2px;}

<div class="footer"
<ul>
<li><a href=""></a></li><li><a href=""></a></li><li><a href=""></a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Best of both worlds:

div.footer ul li {
 display:inline;
 padding:0 2px 0 10px;
 background:transparent url(path/to/raquo.gif) no-repeat 0 50%;
}

-b

[SuzyUK]

Doc,
the mid dot (interpunct) is in that list.. and is usually read as "dot"

yes use lists, those natural seperators..
but, what about the <title> element?

[le_gber]

guilty too :o for the right double angled bracket

will look into bedlam solution

[pageoneresults]

But, what about the <title> element?

12.1.4 Link titles
The title attribute may be set for both A and LINK to add information about the nature of a link. This information may be spoken by a user agent, rendered as a tool tip, cause a change in cursor image, etc.

Use the title attribute sparingly. I was guilty of misusing the attribute when I first learned of it years ago. I would take the anchor text and use that as the title attribute. Yikes! For someone using a screen reader, that meant an echo wherever the title attributes were. :(

One of these days I'm going to think before posting right after I awaken! Sorry Suzy :(

P.S. The <title> element is read out loud as soon as you visit the page (whatever is there, is read out loud). I downloaded the CONNECT Outloud (www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_connect.asp) software suggested in another topic and took it for a spin. Definitely an eye opener. It became very annoying, very quickly. And, that was on pages that were designed for accessibility.

[edited by: pageoneresults at 6:08 pm (utc) on Feb. 19, 2006]

[DrDoc]

Suzy was not talking about the title attribute, but rather the <title> tag itself.

I think, what she's talking about is page titles like:

Home > Products > Jackets > Kids
Home :: Artwork :: Photos :: B&W
Home » Information » Pricing

[encyclo]

what about the <title> element?

I consider that the

title

element is the wrong place to have breadcrumb-like lists. The

title

should be much more descriptive than that. Borrowing DrDoc's examples, instead of saying:

<title>Home > Products > Jackets > Kids</title>

<title>Home :: Artwork :: Photos :: B&W</title>

<title>Home » Information » Pricing</title>

How about:

<title>Kids Jackets from Example Clothing Co.</title>

<title>Black and white photos by A. Photographer</title>

<title>Pricing Information for Widgets</title>

Blog

title

elements are often the worst offenders here: the

title

should be the post title, and possibly the branding if really necessary, as in the first example above. Much better usability (and accessibility too), surely?

[DrDoc]

While I tend to agree with you, encyclo, it is surprising how often you see sites with a breadcrumb trail in the title bar.

It is also surprising how seldom it is considered part of accessibility. :)