ADA, WCAG, Section 508 Accessibility and hidden text

[WillW]

I am working on fixing accessibility issues on client's site, and they have contracted with a vendor who provides both tools to monitor the site and consulting to help us fix issues that are found.

When there are spatial relationships between elements on a page that would be not be evident to someone listening via a screen reader, a strategy that they recommended to us to is to add text helpers that are not visible, but still read by the screen readers.

An example:

Directions to our Fifth Avenue Store

I have seen this technique used on a major brand site but I am concerned that their brand strength insulates them from a hidden text penalty far more than my client's brand would. Also, their implementation uses class names like "ada_hidden" which may help search engines understand the intent, or may not at all.

I am looking for opinions regarding the use of this technique. Normally I wouldn't use it for risk of penalty, but here the intent is to improve the user experience of the pages.

Anyone used similar techniques for ADA/WCAG, or solved the problem in a more SEO-friendly way?

Thanks,

Will

[donford]

Wow, interesting question. I am with you I would definitely worry about obfuscated text penalties (keyword stuffing) employing that particular method. I have no experience with these guidelines but I am interested in what others have to say about the matter.

My initial though would be something like

Directions

Under the assumption that a speech reader would read alt text since users wouldn't see the image. And of course the image could be something completely simple like an arrow or bullet point.

I will wait to see what others may say,

Good luck,

Don