Max Nikulin <maniku...@gmail.com> writes:
> On 19/06/2022 19:47, Juan Manuel Macías wrote: > Concerning <name> vs. <span class="name">, is it the same for assistive > technologies like screen readers to add <strong>text</strong> (or <b>text</b>) > and <span class="strong">text</span> with "font-weight: bolder;" in CSS? First, never use <b></b> or <it></it>, only use semantic tags for accessibility. The question unfortunately has a complicated answer. Basically, <div> and <span> are the two tags which have no semantic meaning. So, from an accessibility perspective, they don't convey anything. They are basically a presentation layout tgag. However, this is not a bad thing, but rather a very good thing. This touches on the area where far too many people get accessibility wrong. It is like the very misguided rule which says all images must have an alt tag. The key point to consider is whether what your communicating via layout has any real use for someone using a screen reader. Consider something like #+being_src <section aria-label="section label"> <h3>Section Title</h3> <section class="fancy-css-class"> <section class="some-css-class"> Some Content wrapped within multiple section elements. </section> </section> ... </section> #+end_src The inner <section> is being used to avoid using a <div> in the mistaken belief that using a <div> (or <span>) would be bad for accessibility. Unfortunately, the above wil often result in the screen reader reading out "Seciton section section SOme content" (some screen readers would ignore the inner section as it has no aria tag). Same sort of problem occurred with the rule about images must have an 'alt' tag. I cannot count the number of pages I visit where the screen reader says "logo logo filler righ pad left pad filler logo brand". So, the span tag is great for accessibility when what the author is trying to convey is layout information or styling information which is of no use to blind or VI users. Often such style emphasis is used to assist sighted users who can quickly scan the page. Blind and VI users cannot scan in the same way. What is more important for us is the ability to get an overview of the semantic content of the page - sections, table, lists etc. Sadly, org isn't great from an accessibility perspective. This is something I would like to see improved, but it is a huge and complex task. There are some 'easy' winds we could try. For example, org still defaults to using the <b></b> and <i></i> tags instead of <strong></strong> and <em></em>. Likewise, we should move to html5 as the default, not xhtml, but last time I raised that, there was considerable push back to stick with xhtml. We also need complete overhaul of the use of aria tags and numerous other areas. As I said, a very large job which is complex and extremely time consuming. Sadly, I'm not sure there is a lot we can do with accessibility and PDFs in org mode. This is the one area where TeX/LaTeX does a poor job. Last time I looked, there was considerable discussion about what to do from an accessibility standpoint in the TeX community, but seemed to be little or very slow progress (not a criticism of the efforts of members of that community, but rather a reflection of how complicated this stuff is).