CSS Visibility & Display

I was hoping to be able to use one CSS display and/or visibility properties
to dynamically hide and display menus for visual users, but still have the
screen readers read out the "hidden" text. But, it seems that the leading
screen readers support these properties very inconsistently.

So far, I've found the following results:

JAWS 4.0.103:
Reads text with visibility:hidden or display:none, IF style rule is set in
the <style> block in the document <head>.
Does not read text with visibility:hidden or display:none, IF style is set
in-line.

HPR 3.00:
Reads text with visibility:hidden or display:none, regardless of where the
style is set.

HPR 3.02:
Does not read text with visibility:hidden or display:none, regardless of
where the style is set.

Does anyone know if there is a "correct" way for the assistive technology
tools to be handling these properties? Also, how are the other assistive
technologies - Window-Eyes in particular - handling this? (Any other
suggestions on making accessible DHTML menus?)

Thanks,
Mike

Received on Thursday, 15 November 2001 14:36:52 UTC