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Re: Indicating primar and secondary action links to screen readers

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Sep 6, 2016 2:48PM


Imagine you have a page where users can read about an email offer
list. The page includes a couple of links and some text, but the
"register for our mailing list" link is visually formatted to stand
out as the primary action.
It is assigned a CSS class such as "primary action" or similar that
makes it look box like (almost button like).
Traditionally I haven't even thought of communicating this info in any
way, if the link has accessible text and is in a content location that
makes sense, and I don't think my stance on this has necessary
changed.
But when visual styling is used to assign priority to links on a page,
well, it is tricky to figure out if that info is important enough to
look for a text alterantive.
Cheers



On 9/6/16, Jim Homme < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hi Birkir,
> We try to advocate for as little off-screen content as possible here. Our
> view is that any site should try to make an equivalent experience for as
> wide as possible audience of people with disabilities. If you create
> off-screen controls, for example, people with motor disabilities who have
> site might tab onto them and get confused when focus disappears, and the
> same for people with inteellectual disabilities.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim
>
>
> =========> Jim Homme,
> Accessibility Consultant,
> Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
> Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
> 412-787-8567,
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions
> E+R=O
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
> Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
> Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 4:02 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: [WebAIM] Indicating primar and secondary action links to screen
> readers
>
> Hi gang
>
> I am contemplating a curious question from my team.
>
> They are wondering if they should use visually hidden texton links and
> buttons that are visually indicated as the primary and secondary actions on
> webpages.
> Basically primary action (or call to action) links or buttons (normally one
> per webpage) get unique visual emphasis via CSS, ditto with secondary
> actions.
> There is no HTML element or ARIA attribute to provide equivalent
> functionality programmatically (perhaps the aria-roledescription could be
> used for this purpose).
> Bottomline:
> 1. Is this information important enough so that it should be provided
> textually or programmatically? I have never made such a call in my findings,
> and I have never seen it done on websites I have audited, but it is a fact
> that this info could be important or at least useful on some pages.
> 2. If it is provided, is there a technique better than good old screen
> reader text to do so?
> I am not a fan of using heading tags to do this, I think it is not correct
> use of headings.
>
> Cheers
> -B
>
> --
> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
> > > http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > > >


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