508 ADA Compliant - Way to skip content

Question

Say you have a list of updated items from a feed you're loading from an external resource that you know your ADA user would never care to hear read by their screen reader. Is there a way I'm not finding to let them skip that content, or even omit it from what a screen reader might look at that's still 508 compliant?

I know the "skip navigation" tricks, but would like to know another method for adhoc situations and am looking to be educated if someone knows a clean trick? Thanks!

Answer 1

Chris - I recommend changing the language you are using. Referring to a person with a disability as an ADA user is akin to referring to an African American as a semi-derogitory name.

loading from an external resource that you know your ADA user would never care to hear read by their screen reader.

Can you give some proof of this rather large assumption? Taking out the fact we are talking about people with disabilities, the quoted line would read "I have a feature on my page that up to 20% of visitors won't care about." Most people will say then "why are you spending that much real estate on a feature? Axe it!"

your ADA user would never care to hear read by their screen reader

This is also limited vision on your end. ADA Users, rather people with disabilities don't just use screen readers.

Is there a way I'm not finding to let them skip that content, or even omit it from what a screen reader might look at that's still 508 compliant?

The best way to do this is the skip link method you mentioned. Pseudo code:

<a href="#jump" class="hidden">Skip over the useless feature</a>
<div>
  // code for the useless feature
</div>
<a name="jump" id="jump" tabindex="-1"></a>
<p>blah blah blah</p>

Then .hidden would be something like:

.hidden {
  position: absolute;
  left: -999px;
  z-index: 999;
}
.hidden:focus { left: 999px; }

Answer 2

Place a heading tag at the beginning of the "important" content so that it can easily be jumped to. As a screen reader user I commonly navigate pages by heading as a more reliable way to skip boilerplate content. Anchors don't always work; sometimes they send you to a random location on the page or just do nothing.