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RE: Title attribute on span tags

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Mar 5, 2003 3:24PM

I knew that someone was going to be able to provide a more complete answer
to the title attribute question. Here is a post that was sent to me that I
am now forwarding to the list with the permission of the author:

<begin quote>

I am a web accessibility consultant working in Ottawa Canada and a long time
(15 years) screen reader user. Having been a screen reader beta tester for
many years, I also have a good understanding of how these products work with
the web and other applications. With this in mind here is my answer to your
question about screen readers reading the contents of the title attribute.

JAWS has for some time read the title attribute. The problem is that the
search order and reading of different attributes can be adjusted by the
user. For example, let's use a link on a page with some additional advisory
text provided by content in a title attribute. The JAWS default is to read
"screen text" for link text. In this configuration JAWS reads the displayed
link text that is positioned before the closing </a> anchor, but not the
text contained in the title= attribute. However, if you change the JAWS HTML
settings to read "title" for link text then the contents of the title is
spoken. So, JAWS does recognize and read the title attribute although in my
opinion, their implementation of this is not yet perfect. The link example
is a good one to illustrate where I believe their implementation is a bit
flawed. If you change the JAWS default reading of link text to title, then
the text contained in the title attribute is read instead of the displayed
link anchor text. Here is a basic example.

<A href="http://www.webaim.org/"title="contains training guides and
tutorials">How-To></A>

With JAWS set to read "screen text" for links, the text for this link is
read as How To
With JAWS set to read "title" for links, the text for this same link is then
read as contains training guides and tutorials

I believe that the proper JAWS reading behavior should be to read the
displayed link text followed by the pop-up text from the title. Example,
how-to: training guides and tutorials

The only work around I have been able to come up with to achieve this
reading behavior is to also include the text for the link in the title
attribute as title="How-To: training guides and tutorials'

In every other scenario I have tried here the contents in the title
attribute is read.

Despite some questionable reading behaviors such as this, all of the screen
reader developers that I am aware of are working to process and read
standards compliant HTML pages correctly. JAWS is now up to version 4.51 and
has made significant improvements in this area over the last year or
so. For a list of the version 4.51 fixes and enhancements, go to
http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_downloads/DL_JAWS451.asp. From my
testing, I believe that they have now made some improvements to the accurate
processing and reading of data tables in this version.

As I am sure you do as well, I often encounter clients who say, "we are
going to buy a copy of JAWS" or whatever self voicing browser to test the
reading of web pages. The reality is that applications such as JAWS are
becoming more complex with added functionality. Because of this, developers
may spend countless hours trying to figure out why some content on a
standards compliant page isn't being read correctly. Developers who are also
not good users cannot possibly be expected to know these products at the
level required to determine when the issue is actually with the screen
reader.

Although I haven't added them all up, there have to be over 100 selectable
options for HTML processing/reading in this latest version of JAWS. Changing
these in any number of combinations will impact what HTML content is being
read to the user. As a consequence, one can quickly become overwhelmed with
why things are not working as expected if they have not kept track of these
program configuration changes.

<end quote>

My (Paul's) last little comment:

I appreciate the extra information. I am personally not a regular screen
reader user, and although I frequently test with screen readers and try to
keep up with the advances that they make, I purposely leave my screen reader
settings in the default setting because I don't want to plan my techniques
for only the more advanced screen reader users. Many screen reader users
aren't familiar with the extra settings and options. To the extent possible,
I like to try to make things work for screen readers in the default setting.

However, it is also true that you have to know how to use a screen reader in
order to test for true screen reader accessibility. Many developers have
complained about the inaccessibility of their tables or forms simply because
they weren't using the screen reader properly (i.e. you have to go into
table reading mode and forms mode). It's always best to have the opinion of
a regular screen reader user who knows the program's options.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu

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