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From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Nov 12 2008 11:05AM
Subject: Concern about ASP.NET validators and accessibility
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Hello,

I need some insight into how screen readers handle the CSS property:
value for display:none. I some forms that use asp validation controls
and they hide their potential error messages from sighted users using
display:none. It is my understanding the most screen readers do not
read elements that use display:none. I noticed when I test my form with
bad input that when it renders the error message, the source code still
shows a style of display:none. I'm not sure how it displays to me (a
sighted person) with display:none, but my big concern is with screen
reader users who may submit bad input. Do they hear the error message?



Any assistance on this, especially from asp.net programmers would be
greatly appreciated.



Thanks,



Angela French

Internet Specialist

State Board for Community & Technical Colleges

360-704-4316

http://www.checkoutacollege.com

http://www.sbctc.ctc.edu

From: Waltenberger, Lon (LNI)
Date: Wed, Nov 12 2008 11:20AM
Subject: Re: Concern about ASP.NET validators and accessibility
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You asked:
I need some insight into how screen readers handle the CSS property:
value for display:none.

Answer:
Inconsistently. That's been our experience with JAWS.

A quick search included this in the SER:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fir.

Hope that helps.

From: Karl Groves
Date: Wed, Nov 12 2008 11:25AM
Subject: Re: Concern about ASP.NET validators and accessibility
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Addendum: Here's a much more comprehensive discussion of the topic:
http://juicystudio.com/article/screen-readers-display-none.php

Karl

>

From: Karl Groves
Date: Wed, Nov 12 2008 11:30AM
Subject: Re: Concern about ASP.NET validators and accessibility
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Display: none completely hides the content from everyone, including AT
users.
If it is being used for content which should be revealed to AT users, a
different method (such as positioning offscreen) should be used.

Karl


>

From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Wed, Nov 12 2008 11:50AM
Subject: Re: Concern about ASP.NET validators and accessibility
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Karl Groves wrote:
> Display: none completely hides the content from everyone, including AT
> users.

Well, except users who aren't applying publisher CSS because it makes
content either hard to use or unusable (Opera's built-in User
stylesheets come to mind, as do text browsers) … which makes display:
none; unsuitable even for these purposes.

Fortunately, the appendChild and removeChild methods tend to be entirely
sufficient for adding and removing content for all users as necessity
requires - subject to persuading assistive technology to update virtual
buffers and notifying the user of change.

For showing content to screen reader users and users not applying
publisher CSS, positioning text off-screen left (or perhaps right for
right-to-left scripts) seems to be the most reliable technique.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis