Comments on: Empty Links and Screen Readers

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:52:14 +0000

What about this? This is the one thing What if you hide the span, but still display the "a" tag? In this way, the title attribute is available, the anchor tag is not hidden, and the anchor tag is not technically empty - though it might appear empty to a screen reader, no sure. Can this be tested?

By: SemanticCamp London « fberriman

SemanticCamp London « fberriman — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:15:46 +0000

[...] Clarified the uses of the include-pattern, via Mike Davies of Yahoo [...]

By: Empty Links and Screen Readers - The Paciello Group Blog

Empty Links and Screen Readers - The Paciello Group Blog — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:12:57 +0000

[...] Empty Links and Screen Readers – Research into the potential accessibility barriers of links that contain no link text. [...]

By: Mel Pedley

Mel Pedley — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:12:30 +0000

Thanks for this, Mike, It’s good to have some initial solid data to backup what may have been previously just a theory (aka “gut instinct”).

Just to follow on from pixeldiva’s comments about hiding links offscreen. She mentions sighted non-screenreading users but some screen readers users can see very well. Some dyslexics use screen readers to support their comprehension of web pages.

Given that this is a group that may be easily disorientated, I’ve always been a bit concerned that offscreen positioning of page content could create problems for these users as the screen reader output would no longer match the visual display. I’m not suggesting that offscreen positioning should be abandoned – merely that it should be used judiciously. More than a couple of instances on a page may well create barriers for this group.

I think it’s also worth remembering that only about 5% of those who are registered blind (in the UK) are thought to have no usable sight. With that in mind, it becomes harder to asses what extent (if any) individual visually-impaired screen reader users rely on the visual display. Again, any significant disparity between the visual display and the screen reader output could create confusion.

In short, screen reader users aren’t necessarily blind. They just have problems reading. :-)

By: Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd

Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:47:55 +0000

This is very interesting. Also useful to know that off-screen links (which I use on my own website) can cause problems for users of magnifying software.

Jacks comment: “Any accessibility developers should ‘use’ it!” is good. Maybe I am naive but after becoming the law in 1999 that all websites should be accessible (in the UK) I would assume that all web developers take accessibility very seriously (removes tongue from cheek).

By: Max Design - standards based web design, development and training » Some links for light reading (29/1/08)

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:22:30 +0000

[...] Empty Links and Screen Readers [...]

By: Guillaume’s blog » Blog Archive » Property vs. subject referencing and property inheritance in Microformats

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:00:20 +0000

[...] technique typically relies on one or more empty anchor (”a”) element(s), and as such has been criticized as not accessible for non graphical user agents such as screen readers, which get confused by these [...]

By: Mike Davies

Mike Davies — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:46:59 +0000

Hi Steve,

I’m not sure whether its the screen reader that’s figuring out what to display or the browser. I guess using a MSAA debugger/watcher will reveal which one is doing what.

My explanation of the heuristics is based on the first table of test cases – JAWS7.10 and Internet Explorer 6, basically since I have the test results for a normal link, a titled empty link, and an empty link, I deduced what was going on based on the test results.

By: goetsu

goetsu — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:05:49 +0000

for information, i have run the test case with nvda :
The absolute url is read every time except for the visibility hidden and display none links who are never announced, the title is read not read at all

By: links for 2008-01-26 « Simply… A User

links for 2008-01-26 « Simply… A User — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:40:00 +0000

[...] Empty Links and Screen Readers » Yahoo! User Interface Blog (tags: accessibility screenreader microformats yahoo css html article links *) [...]