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Re: Guidelines on making <i> icons accessible?

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From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Jul 23, 2017 3:23PM

I've never understood why <i> was set as a standard (or a convention) for icons in the first place.

It's the original HTML tag for italic text that indicates just a change in the visual appearance (as opposed to <em> which places meaning behind the visual appearance).

Maybe this is an example of too many chefs in the standards-making kitchen. In basic programming, it's not wise to take an existing tag or code structure and use it for a different purpose. Code tends to not work well or as predicted when we do that, especially when the 2 standards exist in the same product, such as <i> used in an HTML webpage where it's not italic but instead an icon.

Stack Overflow has a couple of threads on this topic that might help you. Keep in mind that these are people discussing options, not necessarily stating what is required or acceptable for accessibility.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11135261/should-i-use-i-tag-for-icons-instead-of-span

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17471390/how-to-use-i-tag-with-icons

--Bevi Chagnon