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Thread: text content displayed vertically
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Julius Charles Serrano
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2012 1:32PM
Subject: text content displayed vertically
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Hi everyone.
What are your thoughts on text content displayed vertically in web
pages? These are blocks of text which, when read using a screen reader
(using the down arrow key) would sound like:
"A
C
C
E
S
S"
Being a screen reader user myself, I am not 100% sure what it looks like.
I am assuming that this might be an issue of readability, although I'd
like to get your thoughts on it. Is this something we, as accessibility
advocates, should point out as an issue?
Thanks.
Julius
--
Julius Charles Serrano
Accessibility Specialist
Catalyst IT Ltd
http://www.catalyst.net.nz
Mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Phone: +64 (4) 803-2436
From: Bourne, Sarah (ITD)
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2012 1:59PM
Subject: Re: text content displayed vertically
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As a sighted user, I find vertically stacked words hard to read. There's a significant cognitive load.
sb
Sarah E. Bourne
Director of Assistive Technology &
Mass.Gov Chief Technology Strategist
Information Technology Division
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 1601 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.mass.gov/itd
From: Keith Parks
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2012 2:17PM
Subject: Re: text content displayed vertically
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On Dec 13, 2012, at 12:32 PM, Julius Charles Serrano wrote:
> Hi everyone.
>
> What are your thoughts on text content displayed vertically in web
> pages? These are blocks of text which, when read using a screen reader
> (using the down arrow key) would sound like:
>
> "A
> C
> C
> E
> S
> S"
Seems like you could accomplish the vertically-stacked display through CSS applied to a regular string of text, which would read normally through a screen reader. Thus no down-arrow necessary.
******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications
http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
----------------------------------------------------------
War is never the answer.
Unless, of course, the question is either "How do you stop Hitler?" or
"What was the name of that 70s R&B band who did that song 'Low Rider'?"
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2012 2:49PM
Subject: Re: text content displayed vertically
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2012-12-13 23:17, Keith Parks wrote:
> Seems like you could accomplish the vertically-stacked display
> through CSS applied to a regular string of text, which would
> read normally through a screen reader.
Yes, that's possible, though perhaps a little kludgy. The code could be
something like this:
<style>
.vertical {
width: 0.9em;
word-break: break-all;
text-transform: uppercase;
text-align: center;
line-height: 1;
}
</style>
<p class=vertical>access</p>
There might be better ways. This way has the problem that the width
needs to be selected well, depending on the font, so that only one
letter fits on one line and, on the other hand, the element is wide
enough to make alignment work.
I'm afraid many authors would use the simpler and more robust way of
just putting a forced line break, <br>, after each letter, and this can
be expected to cause problems to people using screen readers.
Yucca
From: Julius Charles Serrano
Date: Sun, Dec 16 2012 1:21PM
Subject: Re: text content displayed vertically
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Hi Sarah, Keith, and Yucca.
Thank you so much for your responses.
Sarah: Thanks for letting me know about how sighted users may perceive
or react to vertically stacked text.
I also appreciate the code for making regular text appear vertically, so
screen reader users do not need to use arrow keys to read the words.
Julius