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Re: Empty <P> Tags For Spacing

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From: chagnon@pubcom.com
Date: Feb 7, 2022 11:54PM

I'm under the impression that empty tags, although not explicitly covered by either WCAG or PDF/UA standards, will become better defined in the future.
Steve Green's comments are spot on.

They also disrupt many technologies as they attempt to reflow the content to meet the user's particular technology, preference settings, and needs. They really are a negative for all users, not just those using assistive technologies.

Coming from the professional publishing industry, I can say that they are banned there because of the problems they cause when publishing across multiple media. If they affect those computers, they'll also affect the computers and A T used by those with disabilities. "Machine readable" means all machines and technologies.

—Bevi
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Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | <EMAIL REMOVED>
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PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: Tuesday, February 8, 2022 1:05 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Empty <P> Tags For Spacing

I'm not convinced it's a WCAG non-conformance, and I'm not sure it's even a nuisance. Does it have any impact on anyone?

Empty <P> tags are a big problem in PDFs, though. They cause JAWS (and possibly other screen readers) to say "blank", which we regard as a user experience issue, not a WCAG non-conformance. More importantly, if they occur in lists, they break the list structure, which definitely is a WCAG non-conformance. We see this a lot in PDFs created in Word and PowerPoint.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Peter Shikli
Sent: 08 February 2022 04:48
To: WebAIM Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Empty <P> Tags For Spacing

The use of empty <p> tags to provide space between paragraphs in a webpage...Is this a strict violation in the WCAG principles, or is it something that is just a nuisance and could be “suggested” as a removal to the owner of the page?

I couldn't find any answers in my resources about CSS and HTML failures.
The closest I came was the technique G115: Using semantic elements to mark up structure, which specifies: “The objective of this technique is to mark up the structure of the Web content using the appropriate semantic elements. In other words, the elements are used according to their meaning, not because of the way they appear visually.”

Am I looking at this in the correct manner, and/or are there other techniques, or a hard and fast rule that I can apply when I am examining a webpage? I really appreciate the help.

Peter Shikli on behalf of analyst
Danielle Cox
Access2online Inc.
www.access2online.com
Prison inmates helping the internet become accessible