WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Opens In New Window

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Jul 16, 2018 6:44PM

What it comes down to in my mind is that one accessibility spec cannot
contradict another.

If CSS content forms a part of an element's accessible name it is a
legitimate accessibility mechanism whose use cannot be outright
forbidden by WCAG.

It is not straight forward, support for CSS content is not universal,
but by allowing its use for non-essential use cases we can form the
basis for assistive technologies and browsers implementing its use
properly.
The question is what defines essential vs. non essential info.





On 7/16/18, glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I like Birkir's recommended text update that says "whereas CSS content can
> be used to communicate helpful information about an element it should not
> be used for essential information".
>
> In this particular case, the codepen example provides two different
> situations (whether intentional or not). The first example with "opens in
> a new window" links, I don't consider that "essential" information. It's
> nice to know but as long as the link text is sufficient (2.4.4), whether it
> opens in a new window may not be critical. (Although one could argue if
> there's a visual clue that the link opens in a new window and that visual
> clue is not conveyed to AT, then it's a failure. If there is no visual
> clue, that could be a cognitive failure. If this were the only issue on
> the site, then congratulations. Typically there are higher priority
> failures to deal with.)
>
> The second example for footnotes, with CSS turned off, you would only hear
> "one" or "two" for the link names and not that they're footnotes. That
> could be pretty important. The section of footnotes does have a heading
> before it so you might figure out the context of the "one" and "two", but
> then you're making users think <https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html>. When
> displaying a list of links (Ins+F7), the CSS content is included in the
> link name as documented in accessible name calculation
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/accname-1.1/#step2>. (Note, when I link to the
> accessible name calculation, I like to use the "step2" in-page reference
> because it goes right to the meat of the calculation. In this case, CSS
> pseudo classes are discussed in step F.ii.). With CSS turned on, the link
> name is "Footnote 1" and "Footnote 2".
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 7:28 AM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> I've filed a WCAG issue to help get this resolved:
>> https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/433
>>
>>
> > > > >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.