WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: ARIA-HIDDEN

for

From: Lucy Greco
Date: Nov 5, 2012 1:12PM


so is the screen reader only seeing sertch

On 11/5/12, Weissenberger, Todd M < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Sorry if this has been brought up recently...
>
> A couple of developers in our group are experimenting with web fonts to
> deliver navigation icons (Directory, A-Z, Search, etc) on our site's main
> toolbar. The elements have solid text alternatives and tooltips-there is a
> concern with stutter, but anyway, the web font icons are essentially single
> characters mapped to a wingding, and these display in the default view of
> our new design. The screen reader user hears something like:
>
> "V, Search"
>
> ...where "V" is the character mapped to the "Search" icon.
>
> The developers want to use "aria-hidden" to hide the stray character (e.g.,
> "e722"), exposing only the text equiv to the screen reader. While it seems
> counter-intuitive to me to use text only to hide it from the screen reader,
> the approach tested all right, and the project team seems pretty committed
> to the web font concept.
>
> If this makes sense to anyone, feel free to drop a line.
>
> Best,
> Todd
>
> T.M. Weissenberger
> Web Accessibility Coordinator
> University of Iowa
> <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> 319-384-3323
>
> > > >


--
Lucia Greco
Web Access Analyst
IST-Campus Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu