Hey new people, you don't need to use link shorteners on Mastodon 🙂
All links on Mastodon are counted as 23 characters towards your post size limit, regardless of how long they actually are.
More info at https://fedi.tips/you-dont-need-link-shorteners-on-mastodon
[#]FediTips #MastoTips #Mastodon
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from FediTips@social.growyourown.services
@FediTips Caveat: If a screen reader user is going to read your post and you put a link that isn't short in the post, have it be the last thing in the post. If it's just whatever.tld/thing or something you should be fine, but if it's even some articles that use wordpress or otherwise have long links it's too long and we assume there's no more text after the link and will stop speech once the link starts being read out because it just takes too long. That's the consensus I've been able to gather anyway. Of course for posts with multiple links that have those for a reason this is slightly problematic, and in that case put them on separate lines so maybe a screen reader using a web-based client can navigate by line through the post?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from x0@dragonscave.space
@x0
Thanks for bringing this up!
Do screen reader apps read the entire link every time, regardless of how long the link is?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from FediTips@social.growyourown.services
@FediTips It depends on the fedi client actually, but it's up to the client not the screen reader itself. If the client truncates the link as displayed visually, E.G> with an elipsis, then the screen reader should probably also see that and truncate. But if the text of the link is displayed in full, then the screen reader will read it in full. The client I'm using actually speaks directly through the screen reader and thus also has it spoken fully, it's a client designed specifically for blind users. In sum, if it's displayed visually in full, that text is given to the screen reader, and thus it's going to read it in full too, as it will act based on what it is given with minimal transformation for just blocks of text. Transformation comes into play for complex elements like those in HTML, E.G. speaking the word link before reading out the name of a link, but text is text and unless the app goes out of its way to expose something different to the screen reader than what is shown, which is platform, screen reader and framework ddependent, what you see is ideally what you get in terms of text.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from x0@dragonscave.space
@x0
Okay, that's really interesting to hear.
So, if I understand correctly, if the Fedi client shortens it with an elipsis then there isn't a problem?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from FediTips@social.growyourown.services
@FediTips Yes, that'll be given as is to the screen reader with the elipsis included. If it's displayed in full, though, as most things on desktop at least would do, it will be read out fully. Someone posted an Amazon link once. This entire 700+ character link would be read out... You should use shortened amazon links for that reason I'd suspect, although removing tracking info might also be enough. If you plug an amazon link into bitly you get their custom amzn.to, or the share thing for emailing links might do it.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from x0@dragonscave.space
@x0 @FediTips
This has gotten me curious. I'd like to tinker a bit on this. Do you happen to know which screen readers are problematic with this approach?
The web should be accessible to anyone.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from h3artbl33d@exquisite.social
@h3artbl33d @FediTips As I understand, any sane screen reader that doesn't do overly in-depth manipulations on its output text will do this. And if you're reading, say, an address bar, you might want the entire thing. If it gets text, it's just supposed to give you the text. On the web elements get rendered differently, headings, links, lists etc are indicated by special markers in speech and Braille and can be navigated, but text is just text, and even if that text is a hyperlink the screen reader is going to read all that is shown.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from x0@dragonscave.space
@x0 @FediTips
Thank you. That makes much sense. Right now, the preferable path forward is a bit unclear, other than that we should fix any issue.
At least in western society, the web has become so... foundamental that we should make sure that everyone is able to navigate and use it without any exception.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from h3artbl33d@exquisite.social
@h3artbl33d @FediTips There isn't really any preferable path really, it's more about individual user's needs. I suppose the biggest guideline is never generate links so long that this would be an issue? But then who decided when a link is too long? And in what context? I spoke in the context of social media posts in a microblog format brought about by Mastodon and those it interoperates with. This does not necessarily apply to everything on the web.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from x0@dragonscave.space This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
text/gemini