3h. Make links accessible.
- Include alternate text with every image, animation, sound, or video.
- Include audio containing the text of your main article, if possible.
- Use conventional tags for headings (H1, H2, H3).
- Avoid frames. If you must use them, title each one.
- Make tables simple. (No nested tables). Include row and column identifiers.
- In your head, identify the language you are using.
- Use relative font sizes, not absolute ones.
- Use stylesheets.
Tips on links for the blind
- Allow blind users to have top level headings read aloud, to skim through long pages. Use conventional H1, H2, and H3 tags to offer this convenience.
- Use ALT attribute to provide text equivalents for any sounds, animations, image maps, and images that convey information so that visually or hearing-impaired folks can understand the page without the graphics or sound bites. Ignore images that just decorate and sounds that simply add entertainment. (Recognize that images used as bullets, spacers, and buttons may need to be explained, as well).
- Add audio files containing the info on the page, for visually impaired folks.
- se MathML rather than graphics to display equations, for the visually impaired.
- Use stylesheets to control visual presentation, separating content from format so that the disabled can have their browsers display in appropriate ways.
- With all text, use relative, not absolute font sizes, so browsers can enlarge for people who are visually impaired.
- Provide fully expanded terms before abbreviations or acronyms.
- Identify the primary language of the document, for the browser.
- Identify row and column headers; use markup to associate data cells and header cells. Offer a linear version of the table, if possible, as an alternative. Provide summaries for tables.
- If you must use frames, title each one, describe the purpose of each frame.
Other ways to make links hot
3a. Make clear what the user will get from the link.
3b. Within a sentence, make the link the emphatic element.
3c. Shift focus from the links or linked-to documents to the subject.
3d. Provide depth and breadth through plentiful links to related information within your site.
3e. Establish credibility by offering outbound links.
3f. Make meta information public.
3g. Write URLs that humans can read.
3i. Tell people about a media object before they download.
3j. Announce the new with special links.
3k. Write meta-tags to have your pages found.
Resources on writing links
