Day 29: Making Dynamic Content Perceivable

Published on 29 Dec 2018

• journal
• resources
• was
• javascript
• wcag

WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria (SC) 4.1.3 and 1.3.2 are just two good reasons that we, as designers and developers, should be mindful of how and where we add new content while a user is interacting with our website. Today I spent an hour to see how deep I could dig into the concept of making dynamic content on a page perceivable to people who use assistive technology. I didn't get as far or learn as much as I'd hoped, but I have included in this post a few of the resources I found helpful during my search.

As an aside, one fun thing about this journey has been revisiting familiar websites and running across familiar names in the web accessibility circle.

• Searched for articles and videos about making dynamic content perceivable, as well as managing DOM order, which both seem to go hand in hand.

• When adding or updating content, be sure it's appended after the point of focus the user is at. That makes sense, as many users (not just screen reader users) will likely not go backward in the flow of content.

• Flexbox & the Keyboard Navigation Disconnect (Leonie Watson)
• Designing for Screen Reader Compatibility (WebAIM)
• Provide Notification of Dynamic Changes to Content (Harvard University)
• Make Dynamic Content Accessible (UC Berkeley)