Posts Tagged ‘ARIA’

Most current screen readers support ARIA to one extent or another, and many now support some features of HTML5 as well. With ARIA and HTML5 making increasing amounts of semantic data available to screen reader users, it’s really easy to inadvertently overload people with too much information. Let’s take an example that crops up from [...]

W3Conf is the W3C’s annual conference for web professionals. I was asked by Doug Schepers to talk about accessibility, so I took my Design like you give a damn! post and turned it into a presentation. Slide deck Design like you give a damn! (PPT, 18Mb) Useful links HTML5 Accessibility NVDA screen reader Using ARIA [...]

HTML5 includes a handful of section elements that give documents a robust semantic structure. The header, footer, nav, article, section and aside elements give different regions of a document meaning. Amongst other things, that meaning can be understood by screen readers, and the information used to help blind and partially sighted people orient themselves and [...]

The main element extension specifies a way to markup the primary content area of a web page in HTML5. There are several good reasons for introducing the main element, including a more reliable way for screen readers to pinpoint the start of the primary content area on the page.

When a form is used to update information on the page, it can be troublesome for screen reader users. Unless the screen reader is focused on the relevant bit of the page, the update goes by un-noticed. ARIA live regions are a simple way to improve the experience for screen reader users.

ARIA landmark roles provide a useful way for screen reader users to navigate through web pages, and to understand the purpose of different sections of content on the page. With just a little bit more ARIA you can make landmarks even more helpful to blind and partially sighted people.

Tabbed interfaces are increasingly common on web pages. They make good use of space, and they can be visually intuitive. Using tabs with a screen reader is a different experience though.

Several screen readers now support ARIA landmark roles. Some screen readers such as NVDA and Jaws are also improving support for HTML5 elements. This means that it’s important to put your ARIA roles in the right place.

This video demonstrates how ARIA landmark roles help screen reader users understand the purpose of different areas of a web page. ARIA landmark roles can be used to navigate through a page and easily identify the purpose of key areas such as navigation, search or main content.

The February 2011 London Web Standards event focused on accessibility, best practice and harsh realities. With a smart set of slides courtesy of Tom Waterhouse, my talk brought together a cast of screen readers to explain how they work on the web, and how they’re dealing with emerging technologies like ARIA and HTML5.