HTML 4, XHTML 1.0 and XHTML 1.1
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 can not 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.
<a href="http://example.com/2005/WORLD/africa/08/25/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.
<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.