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Vernon Fowler

Inclusively Hidden | scottohara.me - 0 views

  • sometimes content is for decorative purposes only, and it would be optimal to not announce this content to assistive technology.
  • don’t use aria-hidden on focusable content
  • Purposefully Hidden from Assistive Technology
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  • using aria-hidden to hide content specifically from screen readers
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    There are various techniques to visually hide content in our web interfaces, but are you aware of the different effects they have on the accessibility of that content? While it would be nice if there was a single, native, solution for hiding content, there are contextual benefits to the various techniques at our disposal. Since there have been many articles already written about these techniques, over the many years they've been in use, the focus of this article will be to highlight the ones that are most appropriate for modern web development. We won't just look at the code behind each of these techniques, instead we'll focus on why each technique has its place, using practical examples to demonstrate their purposes. But before we talk about how to hide content we should ask ourselves a question… Why are we hiding content?
Vernon Fowler

A comparison of common web accessibility problems - Web Accessibility - 0 views

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    "An accessible web site is one which can be used by all its intended visitors, taking into account their differing capabilities. Inaccessible web sites can pose significant barriers to people with disabilities. The challenge of developing web content accessible by everyone has motivated the evolvement of a number of techniques to address web accessibility issues. Unfortunately, web developers often lack sufficient knowledge about these guidelines and techniques to develop accessible web sites. This paper presents a survey of common web accessibility problems. Different studies and reports have been analyzed in order to summarize the most common web accessibility problems. "
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Keyboard Accessibility - 0 views

  • Long lists of links or other navigable items may pose a burden for keyboard-only users.
  • The following best practices can facilitate efficient keyboard navigation: Provide a "skip to main content" link on the page. Use a proper heading structure. Provide ARIA landmarks or HTML5 structural elements (<main>, <nav>, etc.)
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    "when testing with a keyboard, you are not just trying to interact with the page successfully, you also want to ensure all interactions are predictable. This requires an understanding of common keyboard interactions."
Vernon Fowler

Accessible forms using WCAG 2.0 | Web Usability - 0 views

  • The label element is not used for the following because labels for these elements are provided via the value attribute
  • This technique inserts new content into the DOM immediately following the element that was activated to trigger the script. The triggering element must be a link or a button, and the script must be called from its onclick event. These elements are natively focusable, and their onclick event is device independent. Focus remains on the activated element and the new content, inserted after it, becomes the next thing in both the tab order and screen-reader reading order. Note that this technique works for synchronous updates. For asynchronous updates (sometimes called AJAX), an additional technique is needed to inform the assistive technology that the asynchronous content has been inserted.
Vernon Fowler

Hiding Content for Accessibility - Snook.ca - 0 views

  • This clip technique is also what's provided in the .visuallyhidden helper class in HTML5 Boilerplate.
  • We've only begun using and testing this technique, so even this may not be perfect. Any feedback and suggestions are quite welcome.
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Links and Hypertext - Link Text and Appearance - 0 views

  • links are more useful when they make sense out of context
  • In most cases, it is better to use human-readable text instead of the URL.
  • The alternative text should convey the content of the image and the function of the link. In most cases, the content of the image and function of the link are the same, so this text can be very succinct (e.g, alt="Products").
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  • When images are used as links, the alternative text performs the function of link text.
  • on both mouse hover and keyboard focus
  • they are also accustomed to seeing tabs and main navigational features (oftentimes created as graphics rather than text) without underlining. In these cases, the linked items should be designed so it is apparent that the user can click on them to perform an action.
  • Authors should avoid non-informative link phrases such as: click here here more read more link to [some link destination] info
  • adjacent links should have adequate whitespace (such as link CSS margins) between them to minimize users inadvertently clicking the wrong link
  • an alphabetical index may use each individual letter of the alphabet as a link
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Creating Accessible Forms - Screen Reader Form Accessibility - 0 views

  • This can be solved by associating form labels to form items on the page. The label should almost always be located adjacent to the form item itself. When a screen reader accesses a form item that has a <label> element associated with it, it will read the text within the <label> element and indicate the type of form item it is (e.g., "First Name. Text box" or "Age. Check box"). Labels are needed for all form elements, except for buttons; the screen reader reads the text that is on the button (e.g., "Submit button").
  • Let's hear what the form sounds like to a screen reader:
  • Let's hear what the form sounds like now, with the improvements that we made:
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: "Skip Navigation" Links - 0 views

  • In most cases, this is not necessary. Remember, the purpose of "skip navigation" links is to reduce the clutter of lists of links. Adding more links increases link-clutter.
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Appropriate use of alternative text - 0 views

  • It is read by screen readers in place of images allowing the content and function of the image to be accessible to those with visual or certain cognitive disabilities. It is displayed in place of the image in user agents (browsers) that don't support the display of images or when the user has chosen not to view images. It provides a semantic meaning and description to images which can be read by search engines or be used to later determine the content of the image from page context alone.
  • The first step when determining appropriate alternative text for an image is to decide if the image presents content and if the image has a function. In most cases, an image will only have a function if it is contained within a link.
  • NOT use the phrases "image of ..." or "graphic of ..." to describe the image.
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  • NOT be redundant or provide the exact same information as text within the context of the image.
  • (no alt attribute) is never the right choice
  • When possible, avoid using "link to" or "click this image" or similar wording in the alt attribute. Links are identified as links by screen readers and should be visually apparent to sighted users.
  • Decorative images do not present important content, are used for layout or non-informative purposes, and do not appear within a link. In almost all cases, spacer and decorative images should have null alt text (alt="").
  • Option C (alt="") would be most appropriate in this case because the image does not convey relevant or important content.
  • Form image buttons must have an alt attribute that describes the function of the button. Image buttons are often used to provide a more visually appealing or a smaller version of the standard form buttons. The alternative text should describe what the button will do when selected, such as "Search", "Submit", "Register", "Place your order", etc. For instance, <input type="image" alt="Submit Search"> might be appropriate for an image button on a site search form.
  • text must be provided to the user which presents the CONTENT and FUNCTION of the images within your web content
  • In many cases, images may be given an empty or null alt attribute (e.g., alt="").
  • Option B is the best choice - it clearly provides the content that is being presented by the image - that the link is to a PDF file.
  • Because this is fairly standard practice, providing alternative text for the image, such as your company name (alt="Acme Company), will usually suffice.
  • It is important to note here that if the icon itself were the link to the document, the alternative text should provide a full alternative of the content and function of the link/image combination. Something like, "Download the employment application in PDF format".
  • Alternative text should: presents the CONTENT and FUNCTION of the image. be succinct.
  • Alternative text should not: be redundant (be the same as adjacent or body text). use the phrases "image of…" or "graphic of…".
  • Alt text of a functional image (e.g., an image within a link) should describe the function as well as the content.
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Creating Accessible Tables - Data Tables - 0 views

  • The summary attribute of the <table> tag may be used to provide a summary of a data table structure (not content). Support for summary varies, but in general, it is screen reader specific (it's not accessible to anyone else) and is not well supported. Additionally, the summary attribute is not part of the HTML5 specification. In general, if a table is so complex that it needs an explanation of how it is structured, it probably is not very accessible and should probably be simplified. For these reasons, we do not recommend the use of summary. If it is used, it must never be used for layout tables.
Vernon Fowler

WordPress › WP Accessibility Plugin « Make WordPress Accessible - 0 views

  • These title attributes have exactly the same value as the text of the link — if the text of the link is “Joe’s Blue Widgets”, then the title attribute is also “Joe’s Blue Widgets”. In the best case scenario, where a screen reader is set up to ignore title attributes, having this set makes little difference. In the worst case scenario, where a screen reader reads all attributes, it’s awful: the screen reader reads the title attribute and the link text, meaning that every link is, effectively, read twice.
  • Skiplinks provide a means to leap from the very top of a page to an alternate section of that page — one principle use being to leap over the main navigation to the main page content.
  • It does *not* remove it from other fields, because a common technique to grant keyboard focusability to normally non-focusable elements is to define a negative tabindex: this places the element into the focus sequence but does not force it into a particular place in that sequence.
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  • Removing those attributes usually makes keyboard navigation much more linear and predictable. The intention behind tabindex was to create a logical tab sequence when it would otherwise have been unnatural; but in practice, that required absolutely insane degrees of maintenance to use in a real-life web site.
  • Links opened in new windows can break web site flow (creating a change of context) and disorient users who don’t realize they’ve moved to a new window. Also, it takes away the option of opening in the same window/tab
  • Remove title attribute from inserted post images/featured images
  • for accessibility, all links should make sense without requiring context, to grant screen readers the ability to scan the page and have information. This plug-in adds the title of the post into this pattern
  • Many designs do not provide a design for the view of links or other focusable fields when a keyboard user brings focus to that element. This makes it very difficult for visual users who are keyboard dependent to keep track of where they are. A common pattern for this is to change the appearance of the element on keyboard focus; and this item adds an outline.
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Creating Accessible Tables - Data Tables - 0 views

  • Another way to associate data cells and headers is to use the headers and id attributes. This method is NOT generally recommended because scope is usually sufficient for most tables, even if if the table is complex with multiple levels of headers.
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    " scope="row""
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Creating Accessible Forms - General Form Accessibility - 0 views

  • Screen reader users generally navigate through a form using the Tab key to jump from form control to form control. Associated form labels are read for each form control when the user navigates to them. Any non-label text content between the form controls is usually skipped over. Be sure to include important cues or instructions in associated labels or at the beginning of the form.
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Links and Hypertext - Hypertext Links - 0 views

  • Users should generally be alerted to links that lead to non-HTML resources, such as PDF files, Word files, PowerPoint files, and so on.
  • nearly everyone agrees that users ought to be alerted when the link does not open in the current window or frame.
  • As with file types above, these icons (with appropriate alternative text) must appear within the link rather than just after it.
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Semantic Structure - 0 views

  • Their sole purpose is to designate a hierarchy of headline importance, so that both human readers and automated search engines can look at a document and easily determine its information structure.
Vernon Fowler

Creating an Accessible Infographic | Access Matters Blog - 0 views

  • Screen readers are very literal and, as such, tend to read out numbers in a list with no particle words or punctuation.
  • Using a CSS technique to position text off the screen, it’s simple to add some particle words (such as “from” or “to”) for screen reader users. In the case of a range of numbers, the dashes can be presented using graphics and not part of the text content of the page. For example, in the second data point shown in the image below, instead of a screen reader announcing “twenty-six percent fifty-five sixty-four” it would be “twenty six percent fifty-five to sixty-four.”
  • Another example is implied headings. Sighted users can understand quickly from images that a data set title should be “gender” but if the heading doesn’t appear in the design, it should be added and visually hidden using CSS.
Vernon Fowler

Introduction to Web Accessibility - Course - 0 views

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    "Introduction to Web Accessibility is an online course that introduces tools and techniques for web developers to easily ensure that websites are more accessible to users who are blind or have low vision."
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Alternative Text - 0 views

  • Alternative text should not: be redundant (be the same as adjacent or body text). use the phrases "image of…" or "graphic of…".
  • Identifying the logo as actually being a logo (alt="Acme Company Logo") is not typically necessary.
  • If the fact that an image is a photograph or illustration, etc. is important content, it may be useful to include this in alternative text.
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  • Decorative images do not present important content, are used for layout or non-informative purposes, and do not appear within a link. In almost all cases, spacer and decorative images should have null alt text (alt="").
  • In current practice on the web, many such images are given descriptive alternative text even though the images don't seem to provide useful content. Option C (alt="") would probably be most appropriate in this case because the image does not convey relevant or important content.
  • Alternative text should: presents the CONTENT and FUNCTION of the image. be succinct.
  • Decorative images still need an alt attribute, but it should be null (alt="").
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