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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images

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See Wikipedia talk:Accessibility#Template:click is up for deletion


Participants

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The following users are participating in this project:

What to do?

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  1. Make an inventory
  2. Find adequate solutions
  3. Fix similar problems (changes needed to MediaWiki?)

Inventory

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Substituted

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Substituted, but the accessibility problems remain:

Still using it

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Similar templates

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Sister projects

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Other CSS hacks

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Documentation

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Documentation about CSS hacks:

Log messages

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Template:Click replaced with ImageMaps. See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Clickable images]]

Discussion

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Vote for deletion

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Although there were a clear consensus about the problems caused by the Template:Click, the result of its vote for deletion was "no consensus" because this template is used in thousands of pages. However, great ideas were proposed to fix the accessibility problems, and I've started to replace it. Meanwhile, probably the best solution is to propose in the Wikipedia:Village Pump editing MediaWiki:Monobook.css to use an style sheet for the top icons (featured star, protected lock, and spoken article), and the quotation marks of {{cquote}}. Finally, the template should be proposed for deletion again. --surueña 17:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What have you replaced it with though? Now clicking on an image just goes through to the image's page.Madder 23:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Where? Isn't a plain link next to the image that going to the desired page? I need more info, please. --surueña 11:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You say "great ideas were proposed to fix the accessibility problems, and I've started to replace it" - but what have you replaced it with? On Portal:Music for example, you haven't replaced anything - you've just deleted it. Madder 16:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid you don't understand the problems caused by this template. We aren't against clickable images, we are against this template because it is bad for Wikipedia. In fact, AFAIK MediaWiki has special syntax for clickable images (of course, with no accessibility or browser compatibility problems), but it is disabled in the Wikipedia (I suppose due to copyright and usability problems). I agree clickable images are very cute, but template:click has too many problems (don't you think accessibility is more important than a pretty portal?). Ask Jimbo to enable that special syntax is you really want clickable images (maybe there it can be enabled in User: or Portal: namespaces without disrupting the articles).
And I'd like to clarify we haven't deleted anything, we have replaced (or are going to replace) pages using this template with equivalent contents. The proposed ideas successfully fixed Template:cquote (et al.), and we are currently working to fix the featured article top icon (et al.). However, I'm afraid portal's clickable images cannot retain its clickable nature (unless that special syntax is enabled), but the links still remain, so the functionality is the same. If we have replaced the clickable image without adding the link please, let us know to fix it.
As I said, I think you don't understood the problems caused by this template, but it's our fault because probably we haven't clarified the purpose of this project, and followed process. It's my fault because I'm the main contributor, so I'm sorry. I will document better the project, the info is scattered and sometimes not very explicit. Have I answered your question? Best regards, --surueña 15:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not against improving accessibility. On the contrary, I think it is something that should be taken extremely seriously. However, from what I can see from all the discussions about template:click, the consensus was that it should be removed from use when a replacement had been found. But what you're doing is removing the functionality. You're replacing clickable images with nothing. Madder 14:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Where's the consensus for this? WP:ARCH already had text alternatives to clicking on the images next to it - looks like a solution trying to find a problem. --Mcginnly | Natter 13:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Click has many accessibility problems, also in WP:ARCH due to the overlinking. However, now that ImageMap is available we are restoring the clickable images with this new method (with no accessibility problems), sorry for any inconvenience caused. Best regards --surueña 18:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:ClickA

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Template:ClickA is very similar to {{click}}, but it creates an external link instead of an internal one. It is only used as a shut-down button for bots. I think this can be easily fixed creating another template named {{shutdown}} or something like that which sole purpose is to create an extremely big "shut-down" red link, and thus being totally accessible (not as pretty, but more intuitive than a red circle). --surueña 17:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Wikisourcesmall

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Template:Wikisourcesmall has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --surueña 21:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Noclick

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Template:Noclick has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --surueña 21:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disagreement

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This policy contradicts what is detailed on Template talk:Click. Also, this policy seems to have been created and being enforced upon other areas by a single user. For those reasons I have reverted your work on Portal:Vancouver. Thank you. Mkdwtalk 04:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: copied from User talk:Suruena#Clickable:
Hello Mkdw, thank you for being interested in this accessibility effort. I don't know whether this can be considered an "official" project of the Usability WikiProject, but I have contributed to other projects under the umbrella of this one also without any links from the main page of the wikiproject, like Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Infobox accessibility. But I can say this is an official accessibility project. And yes, sadly very few people are currently active contributors of these projects (note that in the "infobox accessibility" project we were only 3). However, I wouldn't say I'm the only contributor / enforcer of this project: this issue was discussed in a vote for deletion of template:click, but it wasn't deleted because template:click was used in thousand of pages. This project tries to change that. The wikipedians that participated in that vote for deletion acknowledge this policy, and have helped me to fix some pages, but I agree with you I'm currently the only active contributor (but anyone can join me).
But I don't agree with you the changes I "have made to the portals directly conflicts with the usage policy for Template:Click", quite the reverse: Template:Click clearly say this template shouldn't be used "unless absolutely necessary," and I think those pages weren't following that policy. If you want, we can discuss this at the village pump. Best regards, --surueña 20:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Solution for diagrams and maps

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I'm still working on how to fix the articles using template:click to put text links over an image (for example, template:sefirot). This can't be fixed without using a similar CSS hack, so I think we need something new. I was thinking in a new extension like m:EasyTimeline, but is this extension accessible? Can the created imagemaps be easily read by a screen reader? For example, using lynx I can't read the years in office of the first example of m:EasyTimeline#Charts examples, only the surnames of the Russian presidents. I was thinking to ask the original developer of EasyTimeline to make a similar extension for "clickable maps", but other ideas are also welcomed. Best regards, --surueña 22:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

M:EasyTimeline isn't accessible and I brought this up at Wikipedia talk:Accessibility # Timelines?. Therefore it can't be used as a replacement. I read on the Wikitech mailing list that someone had come up with a new image syntax that could do what {{click}} does now. I don't know how that's progressing. In my opinion {{click}} is the lesser of two evils in that it will give all the required information (plus more garbage), but the timelines won't give enough. I would rather get extra garbage than miss out on what a sighted person sees. Graham87 03:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see... so we also need to fix EasyTimeline (like if we haven't enough work... :-) I will think a little more about this... Thanks! --surueña 09:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My problem with Template:Click

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The main problem I have with {{Click}} is the garbage it produces; not all screen readers read the Wikipedia CSS, mostly because of performance issues. Therefore in my case with JAWS 5.1, I get the image description read three times - the first and third time with a link to the image description page and the second time with a link to the page that is linked in the template. I can find the link just fine but the caption shouldn't be displayed three times for those using non-CSS browsers. I'm not sure how to modify the main page to acknowledge this fact - template:click is still usable, but there is a lot more extraneous text if browsing Wikipedia without CSS support and this extraneous text is confusing. Graham87 07:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Problems caused

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Note: moved from project page:

  • Accessibility: Those links can't be read by screen readers, so blind users can't follow them. As a W3C standard says, it should be possible to read every web page without style sheets [19].
    • Clickable images should supplement, not replace, text links.
    • By giving the image link a title, the alt attribute and the title attribute can show text for text-only browsers, Braille readers etc. See something called the HTML standard from W3C.
  • Usability: Breaks the user notion of "clicking on every image I go to its description page".
    • Counter-example: A pure image link breaks the notion that clicking an icon leads to the relevant page or functionality. (See also that Wikipedia logo on this page. It leads to the main page.)
  • Browser compatibility: It doesn't work in Safari, in text-only browsers, and in screen readers for the disabled as explained above, and possibly other situations.
    • Clickable images should supplement, not replace, text links.
    • It works in Safari too.
  • Copyright: Image descriptions cannot be reached, so their license isn't available.
    • License is available even if the image is not clickable.

The above comments were added by GunnarRene

Please, read the project objectives again: we aren't against clickable images, which of course in general are perfectly accessible, usable, and compatible. However, this is hard to do in Wikipedia, and this template has many problems and cannot be fixed. But if you found the magic recipe to fix it I will be the wikipedian more interested in knowing it, because I'm devoting much of my time to fix this issue. Any ideas?
There isn't any other clickable image apart the Wikipedia logo, which is outside the wiki area so it doesn't count.
Clickable images shouldn't be complemented by text links with the same destination: that's overlinking (see comment by Graham87). It's true that a redundant text link will reduce the effects of the browser-compatibility problem, however too many users don't add those "back-up" links. That's the problem with this template, it is easily abused.
What do you mean with "License is available even if the image is not clickable"?
And thanks for inform us that it works in Safary, I'm updating the documentation. Best regards, --surueña 09:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Simple solution temporary solution: Make the template click itself make a text link as well as a clickable image area. Substing this template makes it even harder to correct the behaviour when a better solution is made. (Unless you keep up with it in some other way.)
The url to the image is available from the browser, as well as in the page source, and the location of the image description page is trivially inferred from that. Having the author information available by clicking on the image is actually not a much better attribution; if we wanted to ensure always-visible image attribution on every view of wikipedia, then the image attribution and copyright information would need to appear in every image caption and/or in a list at the bottom of every article. --GunnarRene 06:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clickable images shouldn't be complemented by text links with the same destination

What you really want is a link with a background image. — Omegatron 15:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Extension:ImageMap

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Will the ImageMap extension be a viable replacement for {{click}}? It's recently been added to MediaWiki and it's enabled on Wikipedia. I wouldn't have a problem with it as long as descriptions are used sensibly (i.e. they describe the image in a straightforward way). Graham87 07:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe not at this very moment, see Extension talk:ImageMap for the problems with it. Graham87 07:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this can be used to implement "related portal" links. It just can't be used in templates right now. Rather than removing {{click}} from portals, an alternative such as using ImageMaps must be implemented to keep the functionality. It's not okay for someone to go in and remove {{click}} and not set up an alternative. --Aude (talk) 14:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See Portal:Criminal justice/Related portals for how this is implemented. --Aude (talk) 14:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds much better in screen readers than the use of {{click}}. I just hope the bugs on Bugzilla relating to the extension can be fixed soon. Graham87 14:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is a big step, I didn't know anything like that was currently enabled. However, IMHO it still presents overlinking, but this accessibility problem is by far minor compared to the situation before where some pages where completely inaccessible. I will start to understand how to use it! --surueña 17:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think rather than mass removal of {{click}} on portals, the ImageMap extension should be used for the "related portals". Sure, it takes more time to go in and set this up properly, but it needs to be done. I'm sure in due time, bugs will be worked out. There will always be bugs with something new. --Aude (talk) 14:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notice about this discussion has been posted on the Village pump. I was not aware of mass removals were about to happen. Was this discussed before on Village Pump? I think broader input on alternatives is required and when {{click}} is removed, an alternative must be set up in its place. --Aude (talk) 14:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't know that changes like that should be discussed in the Village pump. I had planned to discuss there the changes needed to MediaWiki:Monobook.css, and I even proposed to move the discussion to the Village pump when a wikipedian show his objections about the project, however he showed no further interest although the project was stopped due to his objections. I have a posted the complete story in the Village pump. Sorry again, but the ImageMap extension changes everything. --surueña 16:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:DISCUSS. I mean no disrespect, but this change affects hundreds of pages. People should be aware and make sure there is some consensus on a course of action. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) is also a good place to post, so that you get input from people most familiar with the technical aspects of Wikipedia and can help find alternatives. With ImageMap, I think we have a solution that people would be agreeable to. --Aude (talk) 17:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mass template removals to portals

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Until this project has consensus, please do not make mass removals of this template to portals or anything else. pschemp | talk 16:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It has consensus. — Omegatron 20:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Where?--- Safemariner 21:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This project is an example of a group of people imposing their will on the whole of wikipedia because of their personal tastes and opinion. Projects like this give Wikipedia a bad name --- Safemariner 21:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The vote for deletion to that template was clear: it has too many problems and should be deleted but "by no means can one admin and one TfD fix this issue", so this project was created because it was too much work for one admin. Maybe this project should have be first discussed in the Village pump, now I know that, but we haven't imposed anything: the project was stalled when one wikipedian complained about it. Best regards, --surueña 17:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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