Tags: attribute

An Introduction to ARIA States | a11y with Lindsey

A very useful explanation of the ARIA attributes relating to state:

1. aria-expanded,
2. hidden,
3. aria-hidden, and
4. aria-current.

AddyOsmani.com - Native image lazy-loading for the web!

The loading attribute for images and iframes is coming to Chrome. The best part:

You can also use loading as a progressive enhancement. Browsers that support the attribute can get the new lazy-loading behavior with loading=lazy and those that don’t will still have images load.

How do you figure? | CSS-Tricks

A good reminder from Chris—prompted by Scott O’Hara’s article—that the figcaption element and the alt attribute do different things. If you use an empty alt attribute on an img inside a figure, then your figcaption element is captioning nothing …and no, using the same text for both is not the solution.

Make Your ARIA Labels Sing on Key — Knowbility

A good look at the (over)use of the aria-label attribute that confirms the first rule of ARIA.

Use the :lang pseudo-class over the lang attribute selector for language-specific styles

This is a great explanation of the difference between the [lang] and :lang CSS selectors. I wouldn’t even have thought’ve the differences so this is really valuable to me.

Using aria-live

A terrific explanation of the aria-live attribute from Ire. If you’re doing anything with Ajax, this is vital knowledge.

Accessibility: Start with the foundations | susan jean robertson

I encourage you to think about and make sure you are using the right elements at the right time. Sometimes I overthink this, but that’s because it’s that important to me - I want to make sure that the markup I use helps people understand the content, and doesn’t hinder them.

Short note on progressive ARIA by The Paciello Group

Léonie makes a really good point here: if you’re adding aria attributes to indicate interactions you’re making available through JavaScript, then make sure you also use JavaScript to add those aria attributes.

Don’t Use The Placeholder Attribute — Smashing Magazine

A lot of the issues here are with abuses of the placeholder attribute—using it as a label, using it for additional information, etc.—whereas using it quite literally as a placeholder can be thought of as an enhancement (I almost always preface mine with “e.g.”).

Still, there’s no getting around that terrible colour contrast issue: if the contrast were greater, it would look too much like an actual pre-filled value, and that’s potentially worse.

Know your ARIA: ‘Hidden’ vs ‘None’ | scottohara.me

When to use aria-hidden="true", and when you might need display: none:

aria-hidden by itself is not enough to completely hide an element from all users, if that is the end goal.

When to use role="presentation" (or role="none"):

Where aria-hidden can be used to completely hide content from assistive technology, modifying an element’s role to “none” or “presentation” removes the semantics of the element, but does not hide the content from assistive technologies.

Notes on `lang` by Taylor Hunt on CodePen

A really deep dive into the lang attribute, and the :lang() pseudo-class (hitherto unknown to me). This is all proving really useful for a little side project I’m working on.

Swapping Images with the Sizes Attribute | Filament Group, Inc., Boston, MA

The hits just keep on coming from the Filament Group. Here Scott shares a really clever technique for creating an image magnifier using the sizes attribute of the img element.

Building a Good Download… Button? | CSS-Tricks

I love these kinds of deep dives into one seemingly simple pattern; in this case it’s a download link with the humble A element.

The Trials and Tribulations of the Title Attribute - 24 Accessibility

Everything you ever wanted to know about the title attribute in HTML.

What’s hot: using title on inputs, abbrs, and iframes.

What’s not: using title on anything else.

Alt-texts: The Ultimate Guide - Axess Lab

Great advice for writing usable alt attributes. This gem seems obvious in hindsight but I hadn’t considered it before:

End the alt-text with a period. This will make screen readers pause a bit after the last word in the alt-text, which creates a more pleasant reading experience for the user.

Touch Keyboard Type ‘Cheat Sheet’ - Labs - Baymard Institute

A useful primer on which combinations of attributes and values work best for which form fields: type, autocomplete, autocorrect, and autocapitalize.

HTML5 Accessibility Chops: the placeholder attribute | The Paciello Group Blog

A nice succinct description of the placeholder attribute, with an emphasis on accessibility.

Bug 25267 – Autobuffer on <audio /> cannot be disabled

This single issue is what's stopping me using the HTML 5 audio element on Huffduffer.

Using WAI ARIA Landmark Roles - The Paciello Group Blog

A guide to using ARIA roles from the mighty Steve Faulkner.

Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics

Useful markup statistics from Google, complete with snotty commentary.