Can't Select Gallery Card Thumbnail to Open?

[ArmstKP]

Is there a setting I am missing, but why can't I have users select the thumbnail to open a map?  Right now I am only able to select the text/name of the map to open it:

[KlaraSchmitt · Accepted solution]

Hello @ArmstKP,

There is no setting to adjust that. Unfortunately, because we do not have a way to store alternative text for thumbnails on items in the system, we have to mark gallery card image thumbnails as decorative for assistive technologies. Additionally, due to the components we're using, we cannot make the entire card clickable / selectable and if we wrap the image in a link, then the link communicates as empty or blank, which breaks the  accessibility guideline https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/link-purpose-in-context.html. Therefore with the options we had available, we chose to remove the link around the thumbnail and only allow linking on the titles and/or buttons (if available) as these can be configured to convey where links will go.

[ArmstKP]

@KlaraSchmitt Thank you so much for the detailed explanation on the logic for why the options are what they are!  

[BradCarone]

Hi Klara, thanks for clarifying this. I have recently noticed this and I must say that having the link on the thumbnail was much more user friendly. 

Are there any plans for the future to make the entire gallery card a 'clickable' link? Or is it limited to only the text/title for the foreseeable future?

Thanks!

[KlaraSchmitt]

Hi @BradCarone,

Unfortunately, we do anticipate the link being tied to the title for the foreseeable future. Me and the developers spent a lot of time considering all the different patterns available and this was the best work-around. (And we tried a lot of things.) We cannot have an empty link on the thumbnail as we've had multiple customers log that as an accessibility bug. We'd need support for storing custom alt text with thumbnails and I believe that would be a change to the ArcGIS Online item structure.

[MattiasEkström]

Sad to hear that @KlaraSchmitt , I just updated our portal från 10.9.1 to 11.3 and really miss to old behavior of the gallery cards. I hope you can figure out a solution to this in the future that works woth the accessibility guidelines.