The Accessibility of Javascript hyperlinks

Statement : Using Javascript for hyperlinks will cause accessibility issues.

Approximately 5% of Internet uses will not use, or will not have JavaScript functionality enabled in their web browsers. This basically means that these people will be excluded from using your webpage to its full potential if it is coded using non-accessible JavaScript hyperlink techniques.

Simple solution : Use real hyperlinks instead.

The constant use of Javascript hyperlinks in webpages (even when not strictly required) is something causes major frustration to users and accessibility experts alike. Whereas some accessibility guidelines are not strictly necessary, but are encouraged to make users browsing experience easier or more rewarding (such as skip links), the use of non accessible JavaScript links actually prevents users from viewing content, or being able to navigate through your webpage at all.

In addition, search engines cannot successfully follow JavaScript hyperlinks. This means that your internal webpage links will not be spidered if they are implemented using JavaScript alone.

This was only intended to be a short post / rant, so I am not going to include any examples at this juncture, but I encourage you to see some excellent examples of accessible javascript links here :

Accessible Javascript Links : http://cross-browser.com/talk/accessible_js_links.php
Creating Accessible JavaScript : http://www.webaim.org/techniques/javascript/eventhandlers.php
Using real links : http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_13_using_real_links.html

Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any comments on this topic.

Posted byCharlie M at 04:43 0 comments