[bcab] Re: empty paragraphs - are they accessible?

Karen,
 
    This probably wouldn't fail technical accessibility, but it's a long way
from best practice. Some screen readers, for example Jaws, have the ability
to navigate through a page one paragraph at a time, using p as a shortcut
key. Putting in false paragraphs would almost certainly disrupt the user
experience from this point of view.
 
    It's not a show stopper, but more to the point there's no need for it.
Depending on the DTD being used on the page, it's possible that the HTML
margin attribute can still be used. If your agency are telling you it's been
deprecated, it suggests they're using a DTD that's more strict.
 
    In that case, they can use CSS instead. If the website was designed by
the agency, I'm surprised they haven't considered this as a solution. Either
the margin or padding properties would do the trick, both of which are very
much still part of the CSS specification and valid code.
 
    In theory, all they would need to do is to set the bottom-margin or
bottom-padding properties to a slightly increased level. This would create
the visual illusion of a wider gap between the bottom of one paragraph and
the top of the next. If the spacing only needs to apply to paragraphs under
certain conditions, this too should be possible to define within the CSS,
within some limitations of course.
 
 
Regards,
Léonie.
 


  _____  

From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Karen Packham
Sent: 25 February 2008 18:57
To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bcab] empty paragraphs - are they accessible?


Hi all,
 
I'm editing copy on a new website for a client using a content management
system. However, unlike most other such systems that I've used, this one
only visually creates a single carriage return when you press the Enter key
on the keyboard. 
 
So, in effect, a paragraph tag creates the visual equivalent of a BR tag.
That means that to create the expected space between paragraphs for users of
visual browsers I have to hit the Enter key twice. When I view the source
code this shows as an empty paragraph between each paragraph that contains
text - so you would see <P></P>. 
 
The agency says that they depracate margins for P tags and that in fact the
rendered code is <P>&#160;</P> which they say is valid as the paragraph is
not actually empty.
 
So is this accessible? I have looked through the WAI guidelines and can't
see which point this might fall under, so can't prove my instinct that this
is not officially OK. 
 
My client is aiming for a Level AA accessible website, if this makes any
difference.
 
Any comments gratefully received!
 
Many thanks,
Karen Packham
 
 <mailto:kpackham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> kpackham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
020 8942 1660 / 07768 697729

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