I've come a bit late to this thread but I would like to make the following observations regarding previous comments:
1. Screen readers ignore comments. 2. The most advanced screen readers can access Flash content but this is very unreliable. Sometimes they cannot access any of the content, sometimes they can access only some parts, sometimes they can read the text content but cannot operate the links, sometimes the tab sequence is totally wrong. Some Flash content cannot be accessed using keyboard controls regardless of whether a screen reader is used. Occasionally screen readers can actually access all the content and functionality but this is not common. 3. I have come across several cases where it was desirable to 'hide' content using negative left margin. The provision of structural information has already been mentioned. Also it can be useful for providing alternate content for pages containing multimedia or complex graphical information. Of course this text equivalent could be provided on a separate page, but hiding it on the same page provides a more seamless experience. 4. I am not in favour of using graphics for navigation because it is not possible to resize the text or change the colours. Steve Green Director Test Partners Ltd / First Accessibility www.testpartners.co.uk www.accessibility.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kay Smoljak Sent: 09 January 2007 13:40 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] display:none; property and screenreaders On 1/9/07, David Dorward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm very much in favour of text based navigation - but if an author is > going to go with an image based design, then the use of <img> elements > with alt text is the sane approach. But the current web is not solely a text-based medium. Maximum accessibility for both assistive technology and search engines/alternative user agents means that images that are purely presentational should not be in the markup - the presentation layer is where they belong. So sane or not, hiding or replacing text with CSS is effective, as Russ's research proves, and popular, as the current crop of showcase CSS sites demonstrate. It's certainly the approach that I favour. -- Kay Smoljak business: www.cleverstarfish.com standards: kay.zombiecoder.com coldfusion: kay.smoljak.com personal: goatlady.wordpress.com ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
