A friend and colleague pondered why ARIA role=presentation and its facsimile role=none is not allowed on focusable elements? The answer is, theses days, purely a function of implementation reality. It don’t work on interactive elements or indeed any focusable elements, regardless of their semantics. When role=none is used on a non-interactive element such as aside, […]
Author: stevef
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Representation of style
Represents Elements in the DOM represent things; that is, they have intrinsic meaning, also known as semantics. The HTML spec tries hard to give <b> & <strong>, and <i> & <em> distinct and intrinsic meaning beyond the meaning that emerges from their visible default styles (and related aural styles): The i element Represents a span […]
In 2011 when I first started thinking about how best to map the semantics of figure/figcaption to accessibility API properties, the set of properties to choose from was limited as compared to 2022. What ended up being implemented in browsers was a naming relationship between the figure element and the figcaption element. The accessible name […]
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12 years beyond a HTML joke
Originally published February 2020, updated in March 2021. Updated again today after reading web standards fantasy It’s actually been longer (I remember being introduced to the outline algorithm in 2007), but 12 years is a number worth signifying. In 2020 2021 2022 as it was in 2010 the HTML specification defines an outline algorithm and […]
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aria-labelledby usage notes
Updated June 10th 2024 Like aria-label, aria-labelledby provides the opportunity for a developer to expose a short text string as the accessible name for an element. The mechanism to do so differs. While aria-label accepts a string of text, aria-labelledby accepts 1 or more id values (NOT a STRING OF TEXT). The same opportunity is […]
aria-owns is surprisingly strong magic aria-owns allows developers to restructure the parent-child relationships in the accessibility tree. This means that screen reader users may experience a different semantic structure and meaning to other users when they navigate and interact with content using their screen readers virtual/browse mode. Accessibility Tree Tree of accessible objects that represents […]
Emojis Emojis are derived from Unicode symbols Unicode symbols do not have inbuilt text alternatives. They are exposed in the browser accessibility tree as a text symbol: The text alternatives for Unicode symbols are usually contained within a text file in screen reading software’s program files directory. For example the JAWS 2021 file for (English […]
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ALT TAG EMPTINESS
Adrian is displeased, as he dislikes people referring to a HTML attribute as something it clearly is not alt=”” empty, null <img src=”decor.jpg” alt=””> With the alt attribute you can provide a text alternative to represent the meaning of the visual content in an <img> in the context of its use or to signify the […]
Why does CSS text get announced by screen readers? Because it’s included as text in the accessibility tree in modern browsers. See the Pen CSS text example by steve faulkner (@stevef) on CodePen. Accessibility Tree Tree of accessible objects that represents the structure of the user interface (UI). Each node in the accessibility tree represents […]
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Manifest Accessibility
manifest – to show something clearly, through signs or actions. I recently opened an online store HTMLZ (HTML Zed) selling mainly t-shirts. People have been asking my motivations, so here they are: (mostly) Get the accessibility, usability and web standards message out there. Create some designs on shirts I have wanted myself, celebrate my friendships, […]