RE: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

Hi Bryan,

 

> you can’t use a static in-page link with a hash to reference multiple footnote references that point to the same footnote

 

Right, but the problem for EPUB is that scripted solutions tend to be unreliable (the format doesn’t require scripting support in reading systems).

 

There are various other quirks, like George mentioned elsewhere in this thread about even getting to the footnote, or having collapsed content expand without blowing off screen. The artificial pagination that reading systems perform on the generated HTML has a way of breaking a lot of solutions that work well on the web.

 

The only (inelegant) solution to the problem you’re describing is to back link to all the possible referents, but it depends on the user having some awareness of which one they clicked through from, which is the really messy part.

 

Matt

 

From: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> 
Sent: August 4, 2021 3:20 PM
To: kerscher@montana.com; 'Jordan Rogers' <jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org>; 'Peter Weil' <peter.weil@wisc.edu>; 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org>; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: RE: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

 

Hi,

I’m a bit confused. I read the referenced page at

http://kb.daisy.org/publishing/docs/html/notes.html

 

And it states the following at the end:

 

“Should I use the doc-endnote  role? 

No. Use of the doc-endnote role is now deprecated due to a technical incompatibility with the core ARIA role module. ARIA does not allow roles from a module

to satisfy the requirements of core roles, so although doc-endnote behaves like a list item, it technically does not fulfill the requirement that lists

have list item children. That makes it invalid in both HTML list elements and as a child of the ARIA list role.”

 

From the markup examples shown on the example page, it actually highlights an issue I had to programmatically address in the 4X Footnotes module, which is that you can’t use a static in-page link with a hash to reference multiple footnote references that point to the same footnote. For me, I also discovered that in-page links didn’t always work as expected on complex pages, sometimes not moving focus appropriately as needed for the AT to track.

 

I was able to solve all of these things, but it required building a tracker that will map the last triggered footnote when multiple references are detected, then move focus back to the previously referenced footnote link when the back link was activated. Also the reliability factor was solved by using element.focus() instead of relying on the browser to handle proper focus movement, which also allowed for an optional animation effect to be added for smooth scrolling.

 

When the tracker was not included, focus would always go to the first footnote link, which at times may be far removed from where the actual footnote link that was activated was located, causing significant accessibility issues for keyboard-only users and making the user have to manually scroll back to where they were located previously. This was particularly noticeable on legal documents where the same terms were defined in 1 footnote whenever encountered throughout the document, which I saw at times for significantly large docs where over 20 footnotes would sometimes reference the same footnote, and it was critically important for the user to always go back to the same footnote link that was originally triggered.

 

All the best,

Bryan

 

 

 

 

Bryan Garaventa

Principal Accessibility Architect

Level Access, Inc.

 <mailto:Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com> Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com

415.624.2709 (o)

 <http://www.levelaccess.com/> www.LevelAccess.com

 

From: kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com>  <kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> > 
Sent: Wednesday, August 4, 2021 9:03 AM
To: 'Jordan Rogers' <jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org <mailto:jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org> >; 'Peter Weil' <peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> >; Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> >; 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org <mailto:Louise.Lister@iop.org> >; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> 
Subject: RE: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

 

Hi,

 

I suggest you follow the guidance in the DAISY Knowledge Base at:

http://kb.daisy.org/publishing/docs/html/notes.html

 

I think example 4 is the one you are suggesting.

 

I was explaining about some of the issues with extended descriptions. We need to encode things properly, even if the AT is misbehaving. We do report these issues to the various AT vendors when we encounter a problem. We do this at epubtest.org.

 

I would think that if you have multiple back links at the end of a section, the language on where it is going would be unique. For example, back to note reference 6.

 

Best

George

 

From: Jordan Rogers <jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org <mailto:jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org> > 
Sent: Wednesday, August 4, 2021 9:27 AM
To: kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> ; 'Peter Weil' <peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> >; 'Bryan Garaventa' <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> >; 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org <mailto:Louise.Lister@iop.org> >; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> 
Subject: Re: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

 

Hi George,

 

Thank you for your response. I’m going to admit I’m a little confused by your feedback. Are you suggesting that it is not recommended to provide links when working with multiple footnotes at the end of the document? Would I be better off following the “Example 2 – Grouped notes at the end of a section/work” and not include any in-page links from body references to footnotes and vice versa? 

 

Many thanks

 

Jordan Rogers
UI Developer

IOP Publishing | Institute of Physics
Temple Circus, Temple Way, Bristol 
BS1 6HG, UK

Direct line +44 (0)1179301051

ioppublishing.org |  <applewebdata://324420FD-7434-4FE5-9832-936BBA0D1D59/www.iop.org> www.iop.org

 

 

From: "kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> " <kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> >
Date: Wednesday, 4 August 2021 at 15:59
To: Jordan Rogers <jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org <mailto:jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org> >, 'Peter Weil' <peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> >, 'Bryan Garaventa' <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> >, 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org <mailto:Louise.Lister@iop.org> >, "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> " <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> >
Subject: RE: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

 

Hello,

 

In our testing of EPUB reading systems, we find that many times deep linking does not always take you to the  the desired location, e.g. you get to the top of the page and not to the exact location that is referenced. For this reason, we recommend that extended descriptions should be placed in a separate file. You then always get to the extended description. The backlink to where you left off may still be a problem. We have observed this same behavior with various browsers and assistive technologies.

 

Best

George

 

 

From: Jordan Rogers <jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org <mailto:jordan.rogers@ioppublishing.org> > 
Sent: Wednesday, August 4, 2021 4:55 AM
To: kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> ; 'Peter Weil' <peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> >; 'Bryan Garaventa' <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> >; 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org <mailto:Louise.Lister@iop.org> >; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> 
Subject: Re: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I have been keeping track of this email thread as I am currently investigating how to make the ‘References’ section on the digital publishing platform that I work on more accessible. The references are all grouped together at the end of each paper, and each individual reference has a backlink to the reference in the body of the article. I am struggling to figure out how to properly code a group of endnotes that each have a backlink. I have been drafting out the markup for endnotes in a Codepen <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcodepen.io%2Fjrog%2Fpen%2FgOWdMab&data=04%7C01%7Cjordan.rogers%40ioppublishing.org%7Cd347782572e241df770008d95757cd34%7Cf9ee42e6bad04e639115f704f9ccceed%7C0%7C0%7C637636859410245126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=KMPvYd364H%2BYlQIpFtiopeLz3FVShcqoMmqefZqCwYg%3D&reserved=0> . 

 

In Example 5 on the notes page <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fkb.daisy.org%2Fpublishing%2Fdocs%2Fhtml%2Fnotes.html&data=04%7C01%7Cjordan.rogers%40ioppublishing.org%7Cd347782572e241df770008d95757cd34%7Cf9ee42e6bad04e639115f704f9ccceed%7C0%7C0%7C637636859410245126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=oObOcdyo7CXiYzXdq7F4QTpXgRAuLki%2F%2B9ei4esnYTI%3D&reserved=0> , it is recommended to include a backlink after the endnote, but this is an example of a single endnote. Is it expected to follow this setup for multiple endnotes, because I thought it was bad practice to have multiple links with the same link text, which went to different locations?

 

For more context, here is a live example of a paper with references <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fiopscience.iop.org%2Farticle%2F10.1088%2F1367-2630%2Fac10a6&data=04%7C01%7Cjordan.rogers%40ioppublishing.org%7Cd347782572e241df770008d95757cd34%7Cf9ee42e6bad04e639115f704f9ccceed%7C0%7C0%7C637636859410245126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=G2OTF%2FBvVTFOCJ5DGbLmLLozIOeRQ1NsMiSPs8fjDfk%3D&reserved=0>  on the platform I work on. References are a collapsed at the end of the page.

 

Thank you 

 

Jordan Rogers
UI Developer

IOP Publishing | Institute of Physics
Temple Circus, Temple Way, Bristol 
BS1 6HG, UK

Direct line +44 (0)1179301051

ioppublishing.org |  <applewebdata://324420FD-7434-4FE5-9832-936BBA0D1D59/www.iop.org> www.iop.org

 

 

From: "kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> " <kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> >
Date: Monday, 2 August 2021 at 16:53
To: 'Peter Weil' <peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> >, 'Bryan Garaventa' <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> >, 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org <mailto:Louise.Lister@iop.org> >, "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> " <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> >
Subject: RE: FW: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes
Resent from: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> >
Resent date: Monday, 2 August 2021 at 16:48

 

Hi,

 

In our Transition to Accessible EPUB 3 working group (not a W3C working group, we are documenting support in browsers and EPUB reading systems. We plan to publish a set of suggested voiced values that enhance semantics. For example a h2 that is a chapter title could also say “chapter. 

 

Best

George

 

 

From: Peter Weil <peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> > 
Sent: Monday, August 2, 2021 6:34 AM
To: 'Bryan Garaventa' <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com> >; 'Louise Lister' <Louise.Lister@iop.org <mailto:Louise.Lister@iop.org> >; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> ; kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com> 
Subject: Re: FW: Good accessibility practice for handling footnotes

 

Thanks Bryan and Matt.

Does anyone know why are these aria-roles are documented separately from the roles developers are probably more familiar with in https://w3c.github.io/aria/ <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fw3c.github.io%2Faria%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cjordan.rogers%40ioppublishing.org%7Cd347782572e241df770008d95757cd34%7Cf9ee42e6bad04e639115f704f9ccceed%7C0%7C0%7C637636859410255076%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=BulBJhwWcvqltLthDryW5jldqqm4PJ3mOBl7S4eJjdU%3D&reserved=0> ? If they are usable in the web context, it seems as though they deserve some mention in the latter (unless I’ve missed something).

Also, do these roles communicate any information directly to the user, or only to the assistive technologies users might be using?

 

Peter

 

-- 

Peter Weil, Web Developer

University Marketing

University of Wisconsin–Madison

peter.weil@wisc.edu <mailto:peter.weil@wisc.edu> 

(m) 608-220-3089

 

 

  _____  


IOP Publishing email addresses have changed from @iop.org to @ioppublishing.org, except those of our legal and finance teams, which have changed to @ioplegal.org and @iopfinance.org respectively. 

This email (and attachments) are confidential and intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient please immediately notify the sender, permanently and securely delete any copies and do not take action with it or in reliance on it. Any views expressed are the author's and do not represent those of IOPP, except where specifically stated. IOPP takes reasonable precautions to protect against viruses but accepts no responsibility for loss or damage arising from virus infection. For the protection of IOPP's systems and staff; emails are scanned automatically. 

IOP Publishing Limited 
Registered in England under Registration No 00467514. 
Registered Office: Temple Circus, Bristol BS1 6HG England 

Your privacy is important to us. For information about how IOPP uses your personal data, please see our Privacy Policy <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fioppublishing.org%2Fprivacy-cookies-policy%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cjordan.rogers%40ioppublishing.org%7Cd347782572e241df770008d95757cd34%7Cf9ee42e6bad04e639115f704f9ccceed%7C0%7C0%7C637636859410255076%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=sdtqZqYfxkYtCwltD6WrsdWDPZRoGTXwTp9qZkS4%2BKc%3D&reserved=0>