Accessibility Abuse
Now that I have been spending a fair amount of time behind a screen reader, I have noticed a few things we as developers can do to make our sites better for all visitors. Some of the ideas that I am about to share are not meant to be a guideline but rather a topic for discussion. I hope that I can meet with other people on this soon and get more feedback but I wanted to post at least an intro here on my site for some initial feedback.
What I have noticed recently, with all the talk and hype about accessibility and usability, developers are going a bit overboard with trying to make our sites accessible. I include myself in this category as I first noticed the problem while surfing my own site. Not a good thing for someone that honestly wants to make the web a better place for everyone.
I think sometimes we developers get so caught up in the rules that we don't always stop to consider the use and whether it is appropriate or not. Knowing when to break the rules is what makes a good artist great so why can't the same philosophy apply to web design?
Get to the point
There are html attributes that are available to allow developers to add meaning to particular piece of markup. Take for example the alt attribute. It is meant to provide an alternate text version for an image. Often times what I see happen is that a huge amount of text get's placed into the alt tag and it becomes way to verbose to be useful. Also, not every image requires alt text. Images like spacer gif's or presentational only graphics don't need an alt text. Simply having an empty space in the alt attribute is enough to make a screen reader skip right over it, and it still validates. If the graphic needs a detailed description, use the appropriate longdesc attribute. Don't abuse the alt attribute and keep your text short.
I personally don't use this, but the tabindex is another tag that is often misunderstood. I have seen it discussed on other sites as a good practice, but I am not so sure that it is. I have never needed it on my own sites. The default tab order has always been correct. The problem occurs when you place a tab index on a page below the main content. The tabindex over rides any other tab order that you have on a page. I see this most often on web blogs when the comment form has a tabindex set on the form items. When a user hit's the tab key, they are whisked away to the comments area instead of tabbing through the navigation links or the content of a page. It gets really wonkey when the tab order goes back to the top of a page again. Yikes! My advice: Forget tabindex unless you absolutely must use it.
The last tag that think gets abused is the title attribute. Many of the javascript libraries make use of the title attribute as a hook for something else. Scripts like lightbox that use the title attribute for the description are often abused as entire paragraphs are sometimes placed into the title attribute. Perhaps the developers of these libraries can figure out a way to use the longdesc attribute instead. Another offender for the title attribute is repeating words already used as the link text. The title should tell the user something else about the destination assuming the link text does not already do so.
For the most part I believe developers mean well and want to make their sites more accessible, but sometimes knowing when to break the rules will go along ways towards making a site more accessible for everyone.
Tags: Accessibility · usability
2 comments so far ↓
Good post, I will try harder to consider my approach to accessibility more carefully. :)
I too take more into consideration now days when adding content. It's good practice and forces me into better habits that I keep at the office.
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