I received a private beta invitation for Microsoft's new Skype Translator (it apparently translates conversations live) via e-mail. The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to actually download the program; it didn't auto-activate in either the desktop or Metro client. The e-mail had a link to get Windows 8.1 in case I didn't already have it, but there was no indication of what I should do to get started.
As an aside-that-turned-out-to-be-not-so-much-on-the-side, my e-mail client does not display images in messages to me unless I specifically tell it to. (It's to prevent web beacons from invading my privacy.)
You might be able to see where this is going.
The "get started" link was an image. There was no alt text and no normal text, not even a "click the link below to download", which might have tipped me off to the presence of the invisible link. Once I had the idea to enable the fetching and display of images, I could clearly see the button.
So, web developers, please always have alt text or normal text on critical links. Some people are blind, some don't like images, and most people have an e-mail program that doesn't show external images by default. Let me see the links!
No comments:
Post a Comment