Is the title attribute for links required for 508 compliance?

Question

Is the title attribute for links required for 508 compliance or does the text in the link suffice?

Thanks!

Anglice

Answer 1

508 Standards, Section 1194.22 (a) states that:

A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided

A link is a text element.

Ichnite

-1 This doesn't answer the question. That standard wouldn't apply to a link element since you point out a link is a text element. That is more for alt text or titles on iframes or object tags. – Charkha

Sometimes a link/anchor (<a>) is textual and sometimes it is not. A linked image is non-textual (<a><img/></a>). I think that the title attribute is not required for links that contain sufficiently descriptive text. The title attribute is probably always required for linked images or other non-textual content. Note that the a.title and img.alt will probably differ: <a title="go to your financial information"><img alt="stack of money"/></a> – Isoleucine

Answer 2

The current Section 508 standards don't include any explicit requirements related to links.

An update of these standards is in the works, and may align the standards with WCAG 2.0. WCAG 2.0 simply requires that the purpose of each link be clear to users.

The best way to make a link's purpose clear is via meaningful link text. It's ok to supplement link text with a title attribute if doing so adds clarity, but it's not required, and the information in the title attribute should not be essential because if link text and a title attribute are both present, screen readers typically read the text by default and ignore the title.

There's additional information from the W3C at Understanding SC 2.4.4 (Link Purpose) and H33: Supplementing link text with the title attribute.

Increasing

Answer 3

This seems to be the latest word on accessibility & title attributes for links:

Examples of title attribute use that are NOT USEFUL or are of LIMITED USE:

For additional information not provided as text in a link or surrounding content:

• <a href="newsletter.PDF" title="PDF file, size 1 mb.">newsletter</a>

• Instead include such information as part of the link text or next to the link.

Sadfaced