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Re: empty anchor tags

for

From: Tony Olivero
Date: Feb 23, 2012 2:54PM

It may also be that these links are used to trigger JavaScript functions. I
have seen cases of background CSS being used to display an image, and an
empty anchor is in the actual HTML code to trigger the function.

As Jared stated, these empty anchors should be removed, but if it is the
case that they are being used to trigger JS calls, you will need to ensure
an accessible replacement in the page content.

Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 15:42
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] empty anchor tags

Hi Angela

Out of curiosity, what do you use the empty anchor tags for on the website?
May be, if they are purely visual in nature and unnecessary for screen
reader users you could hide them with aria-hidden (see John Foliet's
blogpost from a few days back).
Though it could be argued that hiding website elements from a user
group is a slippery slope of dealing with accessibility issues.


On 2/23/12, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Empty links will usually show up in the links list and will be
> navigable by the keyboard, but nothing will be visible or read by a
> screen reader (most simply read "link") when they are navigated to.
> Empty links should most certainly be removed.
>
> Jared
>