Tip 27- writing that clicks
You might be familiar with the advice to not use āClick here!ā as text for your links. This is an accessibility issue because the link text, available to readers through assistive technology, has no meaning out of context. It doesnāt tell them anything about what the link is, where it goes, or why they might click it.
Thatās a great tip on its own! You should follow it! I donāt claim to be an accessibility expert though. So, I hesitate to give you accessibility tips. I can tell you why I donāt like using the word āclickā as a writer, however, and thatās where todayās tip comes from!
If you participate in the Astro Discord, youāll see someā¦ interesting ātyposā from me. Depending on the device Iām posting from, I might be posting via stylus input, voice dictation, a trackpad, a mouse, or even my brand new little six-key USB micro shortcut keyboard with dedicated keys for cut, copy, paste, find, select all, and save.
If Iām dictating posts into my phone, then youāll see a lot of āducksā and ādocksā instead of ādocs.ā If Iām handwriting, then youāll see ādoesā (because handwriting keyboards favour the letters they think you wrote over autocorrect for sensible meaning). It is not safe to assume that Iām āclickingā anything!
And, with so many of our readers not just reading, but full-on programming, on mobile devices now (waves from 14ā Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra), you donāt know which physical actions your readers are actually performing. If your user isnāt āclicking,ā then prompting them to āclickā is inaccurate.
One PR suggestion I often make is to guide your reader through a UI (user interface) using the siteās information hierarchy instead of assuming which input method theyāre using.
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Full disclosure: Iām as much āthat readerā as I am āthat writer.ā I will totally get taken out of the moment if you tell me to āclickā when Iām not actually clicking. I like to think this is what makes me a thoughtful and empathetic docs writer! (Hashtag-lies-we-tell-ourselves?)
Some of your readers are clicking, but some are tapping. Others are pressing. And if Iām using your project? Hoo boyā¦ all bets are off! š
Thereās no guarantee I havenāt trained a crow to topple a set of dominoes that eventually sends an electrical pulse and updates my project settings. Decouple the physical action from the structural path you want your reader to take, because birds are smarter than you think!
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