Re: Which SC Should Apply When Content Can Only Be Seen By Screen Reader

If showing and hiding the content changes the meaning of the document, then
the behavior you describe fails SC 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. For
example, instructional text could be hidden to signify that this text is
not applicable in the document's current state.

If the visually hidden content contains tab-focusable elements, then this
fails SC 2.4.7 Focus Visible, when the sighted user tabs offscreen.

Depending on the context, it might also fail 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks for the
screen reader user.

It's also possible that the extra content breaks up the reading order of
what comes before it and after it, causing failure of 1.3.2 Meaningful
Sequence.

A tricky situation to categorize (and this is probably your situation) is
where the sole purpose of the button is to show and hide a block of
non-interactive text content. The design intention is to simplify the
content of the page, until the user requests more content. I would argue
that if you have a "show more info" button, and it doesn't actually show
more info for a screen reader user, then it fails 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value
-- because the accessible name of the button does not accurately describe
its behavior. If you can work around that problem with a "this button does
nothing" accessible name, then you might be left with no WCAG violation --
just a usability problem, which gets worse with increasing length of the
toggled text.

Of course, don't do that workaround. Fix it by toggling CSS display:none,
instead of toggling whatever CSS you currently have that's moving the
content offscreen.

Does this answer the question? Are there other ways to categorize this
problem?

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:33 PM, Jim <jhomme1028@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I have an instance in which a screen reader user can view content that
> appears to be off screen to someone who can see the screen.
> Specifically, there is a button that causes content to appear and
> disappear. The content never disappears to the screen reader. How
> should I report on this?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim
>
> --
> If building your own web site is holding you back, I can help.
>
>


-- 
Mitchell Evan
mtchllvn@gmail.com
(510) 375-6104 mobile