WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Thread: RE: Underlined text on button

for

Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)

From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Mon, Mar 25 2002 12:29AM
Subject: RE: Underlined text on button
No previous message | Next message →

Jon Gunderson wrote:

> <button type="submit"><span style="text-decoration:
> underline">S</span>ubmit</button>

Unfortunately, the <button> element is far from universally supported.
Several browsers ignore <button> tags and render just the content, so the
form wouldn't work at all.

Solutions like using an image submit button (containing an image of text
with underline) also cause more problems than they could solve.

Besides, underlining, even if succesful, is irrelevant to blind people.

The conclusion is that if you use accesskey attributes, the only way to
ensure that all people who would benefit from them will be aware of them is
to write explicit textual explanations. More on this:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html#display

The situation is unfortunate, since the explanations will disturb people who
cannot use accesskeys, for some reason or another, or don't find them
useful.

--
Jukka Korpela
TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehitt

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Mon, Mar 25 2002 8:09AM
Subject: RE: Underlined text on button
← Previous message | Next message →

It is true that some older browsers (notably Netscape 4.x) do not support
the button element, but it is the way the HTML 4.0 specification provides
this functionality and underlines the need for browser developers to
support standards. There is a push within the industry [1] to support and
improve upon support for standards. Notably changes in the W3C process [2]
make implementation requirements a part of the recommendation process for
new specification.

I did a test [3] on recent release browsers and they appear to support the
button element.

Netscape 6.02 (Windows and Macintosh)
Opera 6.0 (Windows)
IE 6.0 (windows)
IE 5.1 (Macintosh)
Mozilla 0.9.2.1 (LINUX)

Jon

[1] http://www.webstandards.org/
[2] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/
[3] http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/tests/button.htm


At 09:29 AM 3/25/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>Jon Gunderson wrote:
>
> > <button type="submit"><span style="text-decoration:
> > underline">S</span>ubmit</button>
>
>Unfortunately, the <button> element is far from universally supported.
>Several browsers ignore <button> tags and render just the content, so the
>form wouldn't work at all.
>
>Solutions like using an image submit button (containing an image of text
>with underline) also cause more problems than they could solve.
>
>Besides, underlining, even if succesful, is irrelevant to blind people.
>
>The conclusion is that if you use accesskey attributes, the only way to
>ensure that all people who would benefit from them will be aware of them is
>to write explicit textual explanations. More on this:
>http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html#display
>
>The situation is unfortunate, since the explanations will disturb people who
>cannot use accesskeys, for some reason or another, or don't find them
>useful.
>
>--
>Jukka Korpela
>TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehitt

From: Emma Jane Hogbin
Date: Tue, Mar 26 2002 10:35PM
Subject: RE: Underlined text on button
← Previous message | No next message


> > <button type="submit"><span style="text-decoration:
> > underline">S</span>ubmit</button>

Another thing to try would be to use the first-letter pseudo class.

http://www.webreview.com/style/2000/07_28_00.shtml
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/selector.html

Of course it's not incredibly well supported, but it would allow you to
give the first letter a different formatting than the rest of the word. You
could then have something like:

<input type="button" name="blah" value="smurf" class="shortcut">

.shortcut:first-letter {
text-decoration: underline;
}

>Besides, underlining, even if succesful, is irrelevant to blind people.

Very true.

>The conclusion is that if you use accesskey attributes, the only way to
>ensure that all people who would benefit from them will be aware of them is
>to write explicit textual explanations.

If users are "in the know" about access keys will they look for them on a
site? How do access keys translate in an aural browser/screen reader? Are
they processed at all? The url posted here seems to suggest that screen
readers/aural browsers ignore the access key attribute. Anyone know for sure?

emma


----
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/