Accessibility question

[starwatcher]

I will soon be moving my fanfic to Archive of Our Own, and to a Dreamwidth fic-site. When moving the fics, I'd like to ensure that my code is accessible for screen-readers. I know some things, but have questions about others. I asked the questions in a post at my Studio, but have had no responses; apparently no one in my reading circle uses a screen-reader.

If you do, I'd appreciate it if you could drop by and educate me. Or perhaps point me toward a site that has the answers. Feel free to pass the link on to anyone who might know the answers. After I've learned what I need to know, I'll make a new post to share with my friends, and anyone else who needs or wants the information.

Thank you.

Comments

[starwatcher]

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I thought you were going to use semantic mark-up?

I'm obviously not getting the meaning you're trying to convey. I thought 'semantic' was a program that puts in bolds and italics for those who don't self-code in LJ.

But, yes, I want to be accessible-compliant. I'm just trying to figure out the easiest method of achieving that goal. If something is 'bad form', I won't do it, but I have to ask to learn.


Okay, I think I get what you're saying. But when I read fanfiction, I don't pay attention to whether something is a 'cite' or a 'quote'. It's irrelevant to the story, and I don't expect other readers to care, either. (Although I can see where it would be important on an informational web-page.) So should I stick to the <span-code for non-emphasized italics, and <em> when I want the emphasis?

Thanks for the extra links; I'll add them to my study line-up.
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[lim]

Semantic in this case means meaningful. *g* Semantics is the study of the meanings of words, phrases, texts. When web developers talk about "semantic markup", we mean using tags in a consistent way to give meaning to web pages. So h1 has a specific, particular meaning (of 'first heading') and we always use it in that way, just like words have meanings.

If we used words just because they sounded nice, or similar to the word we really meant, or completely without reason, it would be even harder to understand each other than it is already. The internet for a long time has been coded in this way, and it has caused a lot of problems. That is what pne is talking about, I would guess; for web developers it is a very frustrating situation.