Categories
HTML Accessibility

named and framed

I asked 3 of the industries most trusted accessibility gurus the question: Is the title attribute still the most reliable method to provide an accessible name for an iframe? Their collective response *assumed Expectations Use of aria-label results in the same output as title as both, in this case, can provide an accessible name for […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

Why not?

While on holidays I have been pondering a question Why can’t ARIA interactive roles be focusable by default like their HTML counterparts? The HTML specification states the following: Modulo platform conventions, it is suggested that the following elements should be considered as focusable areas and be sequentially focusable: a elements that have an href attribute […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

Preserved in HTML

Preserving what is important from the transient bits and bytes of the interwebs. Photo by Patrick H lauke Sometimes useful things on the web disappear, but in some cases they are preserved in HTML by the WayBack machine. 2 such articles (written by me) from the W3C HTML Wiki are re-birthed here: Use h1 to […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

The hidden world of aria-hidden

hides in the light An interesting feature of aria-hidden is that it hides stuff from screen reader users, but its effects are hidden from everyone else. Unless you going looking for it and understand what it does, you will have no idea how powerful it is and what a detrimental effect it can have if […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

HTML Developers: Please Consider – in the year of 2021

ARIA is an amazing technology, it allows developers to add meaning to meaningless HTML or override meaning on HTML that is being repurposed and sometimes misused, so that users who rely upon the meaning of HTML, as implemented in browsers, can understand and interact with HTML User Interfaces successfully. ARIA allows developers to re-invent and […]

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HTML Accessibility

Short note on role none or presentation?

Updated from Short note on role none or presentation? none or presentation? Do either work across browsers and Screen Readers? Details on Use of role=presentation or role=none Short answer is: All modern browsers support both role=”none” and role=”presentation” Internet Explorer 11 supports role=”presentation” only JAWS 2021 works around IE’s lack and so supports role=”none” NVDA […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

A decade + a year of heading backwards

Originally published February 2020, updated today. It’s actually been longer (I remember being introduced to the outline algorithm in 2007), but 11 years is a number worth signifying. In 2020 2021 as it was in 2010 the HTML specification defines an outline algorithm and specifies how it affects heading rank regardless of the hard coded […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

re-upped: Short note on the disabled/aria-disabled attributes

Note: originally published on my now defunct codepen blog. The HTML disabled attribute can be used on a limited set of HTML elements: button, input, select, textarea, option, optgroup, fieldset, or form-associated custom elements (currently supported in Chrome only) What disabled does When added to a control: <input type=”text” disabled> A user: Cannot operate or […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

re-upped: placeholder – the piss-take label

The reasons why use of the placeholder attribute as the only means of providing a user readable prompt for a form control is deficient UX, are voluminous. It is frustrating having to rehash this discussion endlessly. I first wrote about placeholder back in 2011, and included a note, later a warning, about its use in […]

Categories
HTML Accessibility

aria-description: By Public Demand and to Thunderous Applause

aria-description is the ARIA attribute you wanted, it makes adding a description (for screen reader users ONLY) so much simpler. The aria-description attribute is similar to aria-label in that both provide a flat string to associate with the element, but a label should be concise, whereas a description is intended to provide more verbose information. […]