Download link guidance update - documentation

[caw310]

Description

During DSC meeting discussing this experimental design request, it came up that documenation on download link needs updating. Look into the behavior of the download link and add guidance on the behavior.

Details

Tasks

• Review how download link works and review documentation
• Update guidance to reflect how download link should behave
• Have DST designer review
• Publish update

Acceptance Criteria

• Guidance on download link behavior has been updated,

[babsdenney]

We discussed this and determined that we need to verify if this download link should be a link or a button and this should go through an accessibility review first. Depending on if it is a link or button will dictate the design.

See the design chat notes for more information

[caw310]

@rsmithadhoc reassigning to you now.

[rsmithadhoc]

I updated the docs in this PR. A download should use a link because it's a navigational action to access that separate file.

W3C also provides a download attribute for links, but not buttons. So I think that also suggests links should be used for downloads.

• However, I don't believe we need to add that to the component at this time. When testing this, I didn't see any difference in behavior or how screen readers announced the link.

[danbrady]

From a general experience standpoint, if it's a "download" link, then I'm thinking it should prompt the user with the browser download dialog (by using that download attribute). (Or at least have a prop to toggle this attribute.)

Thoughts, @humancompanion-usds?

[rsmithadhoc]

We can definitely add it, but I didn't see any difference with that attribute. I'll close this one out, but can open another ticket if we decide to add that to the component. Thanks!