Mobile Accessibility Guidelines - Text Equivalents
Tooltips and supplementary information must not
Tooltips must not repeat link text or other alternatives
Not all users will see tooltips so they must not include essential information.
Hints, titles and other tooltip-like text should provide additional explanatory content rather than repeat the main alternative for an element, object, or image. This prevents duplication of information for screen reader users.
iOS
Key recommendations are:
- Assign a βhintβ to an element with the expanded text via xCode;
- Hints must start with a verb and omit the subject;
- Hints must begin with a capitalised word and not end in a full stop (.);
- Hints must not contain the name of the type of control or view (i.e. button) as the user is informed of this via the trait attribute;
- Hints must not include the name of the action or gesture as these may become out-dated with different versions of OS.
iOS Example (Objective-C)
UIButton *addButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
[addButton setTitle: NSLocalizedString("Weekend planner", @"Title for button")]
[addButton setAccessibilityHint:NSLocalizedString("Places item in queue", @"Accessibility hint for button")];
Android
Android does not provide tooltips or additional hint text other than aria: contentDescription
. Note however that tooltips can be shown when long-pressing on icons in the Action Bar.
HTML
Key recommendations are:
- Do not use the
title
attribute, except on a form input, astitle
is not well supported on links on mobile; - Do not rely on ARIA tooltips, as while there is some support on iOS there is not much across other devices or platforms;
- Do not use
title
attributes and explicit labels together on form fields.
HTML Pass Example
<a href="..."><img src="listenicon.jpg" alt="" />Listen to today's weather</a>
<a href="...">Listen to today's weather</a>
<a href="β¦"> Related articles </a>
<input type="text" id="search" title="Search">
Testing
Procedures
- Activate a screen reader.
- Gain focus on the individual objects, elements, or controls.
- Ensure that identity, information is not announced twice for each individual item (e.g. βNext Next buttonβ).
Outcome
The following checks is true:
- Information provided via a screen reader for an object, element, or control is not announced more than once, including accessibility properties which are conveyed via speech such as identity of the item.