[whatwg] [HTML5] Accessibility question
Ian Hickson
ian at hixie.ch
Tue Feb 10 17:31:33 PST 2009
On Sat, 22 Mar 2008, Nicholas C. Zakas wrote:
>
> Apologies for not replying sooner, I've been struck with a bit of the
> flu.
>
> The problem I'm trying to solve is the case where you need descriptive
> text for screen readers but that text is not necessary for sighted
> users. For example, our accessibility guidelines at Yahoo! say that
> every unordered list (<ul>) should be preceeded by a header that
> describes its use. The header may say something like "Page options" or
> "Available styles" and we use CSS tricks (text-indent: -10000px;) to
> hide these headings from display while allowing screen readers to read
> them. To sighted users, the meaning of the list is apparent because they
> can see the visual treatments we've applied whereas blind users would
> just hear a list read out of context.
>
> Another example is for buttons that make use of sprites. Something is
> implemented as a link but with a background image that's part of a
> sprite. The link needs to have descriptive text for screen readers but
> the text is unnecessary for sighted users as they can see the image. For
> example:
>
> <a href="#" class="close"><span>Close</span></a>
>
> For things like this, I usually end up using the same CSS trick
> mentioned above to move the "Close" text out of the way. Just looking at
> the HTML, it's not apparent that "Close" is not intended to seen.
> Whereas the following clears it up:
>
> <a href="#" class="close"><span noview>Close</span></a>
>
> Now I know from looking at the source code that "Close" is clearly not
> intended to be seen.
This seems like a CSS problem. The text is only inapplicable because of
the CSS, right? If the CSS wasn't applied, then even on a screen, the user
would need the titles or button text you've described.
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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