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Re: Accessible P Tag Usage

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Mar 20, 2019 9:48AM

On 20/03/2019 12:14, Mallory wrote:
> When I audit, I may make a note or warning (not a violation) if divs are used instead of paragraphs for what looks like paragraphs.
> Two reasons:
> 1. some AT can use <p> tags for navigation (again, this is a Low-prio thing)
> 2. The new Text Spacing for some reason decided to specify paragraphs. Why it didn't say "blocks of text" like 1.4.8 talks about, I dunno.
> As a user, making a difference between "blocks of text" vs "Spacing following paragraphs to at least 2 times the font size" seems silly: either you care about what I see as a bunch of text or not.

Note that WCAG's language is not HTML specific, but tech-agnostic. So
when it talks about "paragraphs", it doesn't necessarily mean "<p>"
elements (the same way that when it talks about "labels" for form
controls, it doesn't necessarily mean "<label>" elements, but any text
that acts as a (visual) label for a control).

> As an auditor, I feel free to be as draconian as I want, since we don't waste too much time on "compliance-only" customers. We put the effort into the ones who want their stuff to work best. We tell the latter group that it's best to use paragraph tags for paragraphs.

But how do you define "best"? Tangible advantages? Ability in some AT to
jump to next paragraph that may not be available if marked as <div>?

P
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Patrick H. Lauke

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