RE: Uppercase; what's on screen should also be what's presented to the API

Leaving aside issues of readability is a bit of a red flag to me 😉 Accessibility is about all readers. Unless the use of CAPS is a stylistic decision (I think there’s an Ian M Banks book where the ‘Minds’ are presented ALL CAPS and the narrative in sentence case then at the very least one would mark the section in CAPS as <strong> or <em> (Whether the screenreader chooses to have that announced is up to them) an suggest creating a visual style such as larger, bold sentence case for the section in CAPS <strong>like this </strong>

Overall I guess it comes down to why the original text is capitalised and the message that is missed by not getting that info. And visual readers NEED TO GET THAT TOO 😉

If the original text is capitalised just because the author likes it and it has no semantic meaning they why convey that to the screenreader – we’d try not to convey comic sans (I hope)

That’s my initial unscientific thoughts on this and I’d love to explore the subject.

Kevin

From: Bristow, Alan <Alan.Bristow@elections.ca>
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2023 7:12 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Uppercase; what's on screen should also be what's presented to the API

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization.


Hi,



I am trying to resolve best, modern practice, for general treatment of uppercase content, particularly phrases (not focussing on abbreviations); for example: "This is the BEST GOAT IN THE PADDOCK, and I can prove it with this video of her jumping."



When presented with uppercase content by clients, rather than coding said content in lowercase and using CSS to present it as uppercase, I should like to propose to my team that we leave the content untouched. Am I right to want to do this?



Leaving aside the issues around readability (which are important but not what I am trying to understand here), I am wondering if there is a W3C recommendation or other authoritative source I can quote when it comes to treatment of uppercase text.



Links such as these, perhaps particularly Léonie Watson's, make me think that my instinct to, generally, leave uppercase as uppercase, is correct.



https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/08/advice-for-creating-content-that-works-well-with-screen-readers/




https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/2958239#comment-12571641:~:text=The%20screen%20reader%20has%20no%20idea%20that%20it%20was%20lowercase%20in%20the%20HTML%20source



https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/blog/help/reading-ease-and-accessibility/#:~:text=Screen%20readers%20generally%20do%20not%20read%20text%20differently%20if%20it%20is%20in%20all%20upper%20case%20letters​


Any feedback appreciated.


Regards,

Alan
. . . . -   . . - - -
Alan Bristow ( he / him / il )
Web Developer / Développeur Web
Elections Canada / Élections Canada
alan.bristow@elections.ca<mailto:alan.bristow@elections.ca>


Kevin Prince

Product Accessibility & Usability Consultant



E kevin.prince@fostermoore.com

Christchurch

fostermoore.com

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