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Re: Alt-text vs. Aria

for

From: Isabel Holdsworth
Date: Apr 5, 2019 4:08AM

Hi,

I'm not surprised that JAWS doesn't read alt text in links, as this
creates invalid HTML and the alt text may be rendered in different
ways, or perhaps not at all, depending on the browser. Alt text should
only be used in images.

ARIA is a great tool for making menus and other custom components
accessible. If it's done correctly, screenreaders will provide all of
the information their users need to understand and operate the
component.

ARIA can be over-used or incorrectly implemented. I've seen form
elements with <label> tags and also aria-label attributes. Sometimes
the aria-label content is the same as the <label>, other times it's
totally different. Either way, it can cause more harm than good and
needn't exist at all. I've also come across images that have both alt
and aria-label attributes, which is over-kill. Sometimes a role is
added to an element that natively has the same role. There's lots of
ways ARIA can be implemented badly, but used correctly it's a great
tool.

Cheers, Isabel

On 04/04/2019, <EMAIL REMOVED> < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> On point 1: 2.1 First Rule of ARIA Use
>
> If you can use a native HTML element [HTML51] or attribute with the
> semantics and behavior you require already built in, instead of
> re-purposing
> an element and adding an ARIA role, state or property to make it
> accessible,
> then do so.
>
> From W3C: Using ARIA = https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/#rule1
>
>