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Re: empty anchor tags

for

From: Angela French
Date: Feb 24, 2012 11:06AM


These particular empty tags exist in code that I inherited. I'm testing their removal now. Thank you for the feedback.
Angela French

>
>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
>>