Using display: none DOES NOT hide the text/element from being read by screen readers! Actually, so far there doesn’t seem to be a sure way of hiding html text content from screen readers.

A survey has been done (available on Bob Easton’s [Access Matters blog].) to evaluate the ability to hide elements from screen readers. It seems to be difficult things to accomplish (so far).

Have a look at the survey!

I attended an accessibilty course, with the teacher being blind. He stated that’s not good practice to let feed blind users the full text, while visioned users could faster select the portions thay want read. All there is to do, is to put focus to the content that was made visible by javascript.

I think this isan interesting article:

The height:0;overflow:hidden; solution unfortunately recreates the same problem – Window Eyes cannot read content which is completely hidden with overflow (although content which is only partially hidden is fine)

I can also see the potential for some strange visuals on slower computers as the browser moves these elements in and out of the viewport.

Good stuff Kevin… I’ve always enjoyed your practical approach.

PS: I would also expect anyone reading this article (or even this website) to either know what a screen reader is or take some initiative and look it up. It would seem to be less work to enter 2 words into Google, than to post a question and wait for a response. Yes, Kevin probably should have addressed that, but still…

I agree, screenreader users want to be included.

Part of the problem is the phrasing though, too often the wording makes users feel like they’re being short changed. Rather than making it a negative “turn X off” phrasing, it’s better surely to phrase as a positive “turn on enhanced screenreader support”. Because if you’re doing things well, the options are still there, just in an easier to use form for those using AT.