

Re: absolute positioning and screenreaders

From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 21:03:11 +0100 (BST)
Message-Id: <200304092003.h39K3Bm02840@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org

> what order are absolute positioned elements read by screenreaders?
> anyone have a clue about this?

A tool designed to make well designed HTML accessible will read in the
order of the HTML, which is why the guidelines require that HTML be
written in the correct linearised reading order and why positioning
is potentially much better than table based layouts.

A pure screen reader will not have access to the HTML, so will probably
read left to right within top to bottom, unless it has heuristics for
detecting columns, etc.

A marketable tool may use all sorts of heuristics to cope with the reality
that authors don't care about linearised reading orders, even though it
does have access to the object model.

> Imagine a game of snakes and ladders or chess, how to enable the 
> easiest access for people without a screen.

They are rather different, as there are well established conventions
for linearising chess positions and moves; one could imagine a chess
markup language.

Snakes and ladders you could treat like the original text adventure, 
except if one wanted to be able to visualise the whole board.
Received on Wednesday, 9 April 2003 16:40:41 GMT
