Web Governance
Are white space characters used for spacing?
Bridgit is a blind mother to a five-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy:
"Sometimes it feels like my screen reader gets the hiccups. It is kinda funny, but you know, when they format headings or other text with spaces between the letters to make it look nice for people who can see, it messes things up for me. Instead of reading the words, it is like my screen reader just starts hiccuping out the letters one by one, really fast. I have to concentrate so hard, and it is like I am listening to someone with the worst case of the hiccups!”
This section provides some examples of the issue.
In the example, a song title is formatted with spaces between each letter. This means that screen readers, which are often used by people who are blind, will not read the title as words but as a sequence of letters in quick succession. This makes it difficult to understand the meaning.
Web Governance<h1>B a c k I n B l a c k</h1>
<p>Back in black, I hit the sack</p>
<p>I've been too long, I'm glad to be back</p>
<p>Yes, I'm let loose from the noose</p>In the example, a visual effect of spacing between the letters is achieved once again. However, because this effect is created with CSS letter-spacing, it does not interfere with the correct reading by screen readers.
<h1 style="letter-spacing: 1em;">Back in Black</h1>
<p>Back in black, I hit the sack</p>
<p>I've been too long, I'm glad to be back</p>
<p>Yes, I'm let loose from the noose</p>The Acquia Web Governance platform highlights elements that contain text nodes that are formatted with whitespace characters.
To resolve this issue, adjust your content to avoid whitespace characters for visual formatting. Instead, use CSS as illustrated in the Examples section above.
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