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Thread: Blank paragraphs
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Kevin Prince
Date: Mon, Nov 21 2022 1:56PM
Subject: Blank paragraphs
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One of my personal bugbears, in Word and the Web, is the use of a carriage return to provide space (It should be done using styles/css).
We discussed it at a team meeting and our screenreader user was horrified – “How would I know when a paragraph ends?”
He didn’t know about navigating by paragraph with his screenreader. My position remains that anything we write for a wider audience should use styles for spacing and there’s a responsibility on AT users to learn their AT. It doesn’t help that 99% of the world thinks tapping return twice is what you do at the end of a paragraph but we can work on that.
If he wants an empty paragraph in documents written for him then I’ll do that as a reasonable accommodation while gently helping him move along.
Thoughts?
Kevin
From: Hayman, Douglass
Date: Mon, Nov 21 2022 2:02PM
Subject: Re: - Blank paragraphs
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Kevin,
I think that like skipping heading levels, having those blank "P' tags can be problematic. If one is on a web page and hits "2" with NVDA and it says no next heading level 2, I wouldn't imagine people would then try "3", "4", "5", or "6". Sure, they could hit "H" and hear "no next heading" but I've seen several PDF files that have a third of a page of single "P" tags which read "blank, blank, blank" whereas not being there, it jumps to the next tagged content.
Not sure if you're getting at both authors to do the right thing as well as AT users to know their tech?
Doug Hayman
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Information Technology
Olympic College
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(360) 475-7632
From: Kevin Prince
Date: Mon, Nov 21 2022 2:11PM
Subject: Re: - Blank paragraphs
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Both Doug - I think I was more surprised that an AT user, who works as an Accessibility consultant, was arguing for the use of blank paragraphs. He's very vocal about missed headings incidentally.
Kevin Prince
Product Accessibility & Usability Consultant
From: Lars Ballieu Christensen
Date: Mon, Nov 21 2022 2:13PM
Subject: Re: Blank paragraphs
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IMHO it's fairly clear: correct semantic and structural markup means that everything is marked up for what it is. A white-space-empty-line is not a paragraph (which is usually defined as one or more sentences that are organized and coherent, and are all related to a single topic) and therefore it is not acceptable to mark up white-space-empty-lines as paragraphs.
Venligst/Kind regards
Lars
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Specialister i tilgængelighed/Accessibility Consultants
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On 21/11/2022, 21.56, "WebAIM-Forum on behalf of Kevin Prince" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = on behalf of = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
One of my personal bugbears, in Word and the Web, is the use of a carriage return to provide space (It should be done using styles/css).
We discussed it at a team meeting and our screenreader user was horrified â âHow would I know when a paragraph ends?â
He didn't know about navigating by paragraph with his screenreader. My position remains that anything we write for a wider audience should use styles for spacing and there's a responsibility on AT users to learn their AT. It doesn't help that 99% of the world thinks tapping return twice is what you do at the end of a paragraph but we can work on that.
If he wants an empty paragraph in documents written for him then I'sll do that as a reasonable accommodation while gently helping him move along.
Thoughts?
Kevin
Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkIdU0986> for Windows
Kevin Prince
Product Accessibility & Usability Consultant
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Christchurch
fostermoore.com
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From: L Snider
Date: Mon, Nov 21 2022 2:36PM
Subject: Re: - Blank paragraphs
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My personal view, I would say authors need to learn more about making PDFs
more accessible. Headings are important, and using them in order is very
important (WCAG can say what it likes but I listen to the screen reader
users I know who rely on this technology every day and they want numbered
headings in the right order).
Most of the every day screen reader users I know dislike the blank
paragraphs...think of how much time every day you spend trying to read
everything from social media, emails, websites, apps to an e-book to read
before bed and much of it is problematic. It only takes a few minutes to
artifact blank P tags in a PDF, in fact it is one of the easiest things we
can do with a PDF :)
Cheers
Lisa
On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 5:02 PM Hayman, Douglass < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> Kevin,
>
> I think that like skipping heading levels, having those blank "P' tags can
> be problematic. If one is on a web page and hits "2" with NVDA and it says
> no next heading level 2, I wouldn't imagine people would then try "3", "4",
> "5", or "6". Sure, they could hit "H" and hear "no next heading" but I've
> seen several PDF files that have a third of a page of single "P" tags which
> read "blank, blank, blank" whereas not being there, it jumps to the next
> tagged content.
>
> Not sure if you're getting at both authors to do the right thing as well
> as AT users to know their tech?
>
> Doug Hayman
> IT Accessibility Coordinator
> Information Technology
> Olympic College
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> (360) 475-7632
>
>
>
>
From: chagnon
Date: Mon, Nov 21 2022 2:37PM
Subject: Re: Blank paragraphs
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Gah!
Blank paragraphs!
As someone who works not only in accessibility but across all digital media
for all purposes, they royally f-up everything.
Different T T S have different audible clues to signal the end of a
paragraph. They might be slight, like a pause or dropping of the voice, but
as far as I know the clues are there.
BTW, technically they are paragraphs because they contain at least the
paragraph mark. But they don't contain any "real" content so are considered
empty or blank.
We haven't had a need for double returns at the end of paragraphs nor double
spaces between sentences since the retirement of typewriters in the 1980s.
35 years later and most folks haven't yet learned about before/after spacing
in paragraph styles.
Sigh.
We still have a ways to go!
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