WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: SPAM-LOW: Re: hidden content for screen readers

for

From: Dawn Budge
Date: May 17, 2011 11:21AM

Generally speaking, the CSS pattern used is to use absolute positioning
with a large negative left value to hide things visually but keep them
there for screenreaders. Display: none will also hide content from
screenreader users.
If you set opacity to 0 you are going to hit performance issues with older
browsers like IE6 and 7 if you have to support them. They use filters
which rely on DirectX and so hog memory and delay rendering. Not
accessibility related, but horrible for everyone.
Thanks,Dawn

----------------------------------------
From: "adam solomon" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: 17 May 2011 17:31
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: [WebAIM] hidden content for screen readers

Thanks for the feedback. If anyone is willing to check with their Jaws 11
I'd be grateful. I want to be 100% sure of what the outcome is. I know for
a
fact that in previous versions it read such content - because it couldn't
figure out that it was hidden based on such css. I'm skeptical about
whether
it can figure it now. Also, what if I made the height and width to 1 and
then set the opacity to 0 - would it also not read it?

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 3:49 PM, Denis Boudreau wrote:

> Hi Adam,
>
> Yes it does hide it for everybody. In a nutshell, screen readers do this
> because they tend to comply with the CSS recommendations that say that
> content set to "hidden" should be invisible to users.
>
> Although, in this case, I'm not sure whether screen readers ignore it
> because of the width and height being set at 0, or because the overflow
is
> set to hidden (I would tend to believe it's the latter, considering how
SR
> behave with visibility: hidden).
>
> Hoping this helps!
>
> /Denis
>
>
>
> On 2011-05-17, at 8:14 AM, adam solomon wrote:
>
> > This article on hidden
> > contentindicates
> > that height:0; width:0; overflow:hidden; will hide content from
> > screen readers as well as sighted users. Can anyone out there verify
this
> > (that screen readers don't read such content), especially as regards
Jaws
> > 11?
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > --
> > adam solomon
> > linkedin
> > blogix
> >