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Re: How to distinguish visual items for screen readers

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Jul 23, 2013 11:24AM

Why would you want a screen reader to not read content that is
visually presented to everyone else within the page? If the items are
meant to be hidden, then I'd think it best to hide them from everyone.

But to answer the question, one could use aria-hidden to do this,
though it would (arguably) be a misuse seeing as the content is not
actually hidden. If you're dealing with highlighting of content, then
the <mark> element would be semantically appropriate, though screen
readers do not do anything specific with this. If you're dealing with
content that is stricken from the page, then <del> is correct, though
screen readers don't support this either.

Functionally, perhaps off-screen text ("inactive" or "highlighted
item:" or similar) preceding the list item text might be the best
solution.

Jared Smith
WebAIM