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Re: arai-describedby and aria-hidden

for

From: Léonie Watson
Date: Feb 4, 2015 9:29AM

> I am assuming you are just wanting to give screen readers information
which
> is hidden from everyone else. Why do you think you are missing something?

The reverse would be true in Ricardo's example. The hint would be spoken by
screen readers as they focused on the field, but not as they navigated
through the page outside of the field. The hint would remain visible outside
of the field to everyone else.

I don't believe it's a good technique however. The only way to hear the hint
is by focusing on the field, and then you have to listen to the whole hint
in one go. With aria-hidden set on the hint, it's impossible to explore the
text by word or character using a screen reader.

As speech recognition tools improve ARIA support, I believe this technique
could also prevent a speech user from selecting the hint text. It's possibly
an edge case because it's rare someone would need to cut/paste the hint for
a form field, but worth considering.


Léonie.



--
@LeonieWatson Tink.UK Carpe diem