Accessible Showing and Hiding
Editor’s Note: When I started this blog nearly three years ago, one of the first things I did was write a series on showing and hiding elements on a page. The posts were very basic, as was my knowledge at the time. At best, they demonstrated an incomplete answer to the question of how to selectively reveal content based on user interaction. At worst, they encouraged a solution without any regard to accessibility. That’s why I was thrilled when I saw an article on the Filament Group blog describing their accessible collapsible content widget. They’ve graciously accepted my request to re-post that article here, so without any further ado, here it is…
Collapsible content areas are frequently presented in web sites and applications as a way to let users to control how content is shown or hidden on the page. Also called collapsibles, spin-downs, toggle panels, twisties, and content disclosures, they’re ideal for selectively displaying optional information — like instructional text or additional details, for example — so users can focus on the task at hand and view this content only as needed.
The collapsible content area widget is fairly simple — a couple of HTML elements controlled with minimal CSS and JavaScript — but when we were researching our book, Designing with Progressive Enhancement, we discovered that many common approaches to creating collapsible content fail to incorporate accessibility features. Happily, there is a way to build collapsible content with progressive enhancement so it delivers an optimal accessible experience for sighted and screen reader users alike.
The code example described in this article is one of the 12 fully-accessible, project-ready, progressive enhancement-driven widgets that accompanies our new book, Designing with Progressive Enhancement.
