John
Thanks for the thought provoking contribution..
Except Rob, Adaptive Technology does not explicitly announce <divs>, as
while they add structure, they have no inherent semantic meaning, which
the
<hr /> does. You may be able to style your div to visually render
separation of content, but that visual rendering does not carry through to
non-visual browsers:
div.top {border-bottom: 1px red dotted;}
...means absolutely nothing to a screen reader.
And so again, my question/challenge remains - if you are adding a visual
information clue to your content how are you extending that information to
non-visual user agents?
JF
I must confess that I was working from the assumption that the horizontal
rule was in-fact eye candy, the purpose of which is to rest the eye by
forcing a small break. Not using <hr> myself [ I think this is where I
first came in :0) ], I have never tested this against a screen reader. We
now get down to usability issues for adaptive technology instead of the
boring old accessibility ones, that every body should know about. Would a
screen reader user prefer to have it read out that there was a horizontal
line (if they even have the concept what that is), or would they prefer to
just get on with the show and have the next paragraph or heading read to
them?
If it is announced as a break, and it is a suitable place to pause, to
prevent information overload, maybe it is a good idea.
I am a great believer that, If any images or spaces are just eye candy and
impart no real information, they should not be read out to screen reader
users, thank goodness for CSS.
- Rob
Raising web standards : http://ele.vation.co.uk
Linking in with others : http://linkedin.com/in/robkirton
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