HTML and XHTML
This technique relates to:
Current user agents and assistive technology provide no feedback to the user
when links have title attribute content available.
Some graphical user agents will display a tool tip when the mouse hovers above
an anchor element containing a title attribute. However, current user
agents do not provide access to title attribute content via the
keyboard.
The tool tip in some common user agents disappears after a short period of time
(approximately 5 seconds). This can cause difficulty accessing title
attribute content for those users who can use a mouse but have fine motor skill
impairment, and may result in difficulties for users who need more time to read
the tool tip.
Current graphical user agents do not provide mechanisms to control the
presentation of title attribute content. The user cannot resize the
tool tip text or control the foreground and background colors. The placement and
location of the tool tip cannot be controlled by users, causing some screen
magnifier users to be unable to access meaningful portions of the
title attribute content because the tool tip cannot be fully
displayed within the viewport.
Some user agents allow access to supplementary information through the context
menu. For example, the keystroke combination Shift+F10 followed by P will display
the title attribute content, along with other supplementary
information in Mozilla/Firefox.
The HTML 4.01 specification explains that the text of the alt
attribute is to be displayed when the element cannot be rendered normally. Thus,
visual User Agents will display the alt attribute text when images
are not displayed. The title attribute is meant to provide additional
information. User Agents generally will display the title attribute
text when the mouse is placed over the element containing the title
attribute. Internet Explorer will display the alt text on mouse-over
if there is no title text. The Firefox and Opera browsers only
display the title text on mouse-over and do not use the
alt attribute text for this purpose. Thus, if you want the
alt attribute text visible on mouse-over, also include the text using
the title attribute.
Assistive technologies provide different levels of support for speaking the
title attribute for an anchor element.
JAWS 7.0 will speak either the link text or the title attribute
for a link depending upon a JAWS setting. This setting can be changed
temporarily or permanently within JAWS. However, it is awkward to read both
the link text and the title attribute for a link.
WindowEyes 5.5 has a hot key, ins-E, that will speak additional information,
including the title attribute, for the item with focus.
The objective of this technique is to demonstrate how to use a title
attribute on an anchor element to provide additional text describing a link. The
title attribute is used to provide additional information to help clarify
or further describe the purpose of a link. If the supplementary information provided
through the title attribute is something the user should know before
following the link, such as a warning, then it should be provided in the link text
rather than in the title attribute.
Because of the extensive user agent limitations in supporting access to the title attribute, authors should use caution in applying this technique. For this reason, it is preferred that the author use technique C7: Using CSS to hide a portion of the link text (CSS) or H30: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements (HTML) .
Example Code:
<a href="http://example.com/WORLD/africa/kenya.elephants.ap/index.html"
title="Read more about failed elephant evacuation">
Evacuation Crumbles Under Jumbo load
</a>In HTML 4.01 the target="_blank" attribute can be used on an anchor
element to indicate that the URI specified by the href attribute will be opened in a
new window. This example shows using the title attribute of the anchor
element to provide information that the link will be opened in a new window.
Example Code:
<a href="http://example.com/subscribe.html"
target="_blank"
title="link opens in new window">
Subscribe to email notifications about breaking news
</a>No resources available for this technique.
Examine the source code for anchor elements.
For each anchor element that has a title attribute, check that the
title attribute together with the link text describes the purpose
of the link.
Check #1 is true.