ADA and WCAG Compliance Issues

[Spiffy3502]

I have been using Xara for about 6 years, and really like the web designer program. Now I'm trying to bring my websites up to speed with making them accessible and compliant with the latest ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) requirements. Some things are obviously under my control like color schemes and image ALT tags, but there are other things getting flagged by compliance scans that seem to be automatically generated by Xara. Here are a few examples:

1. Every site I have created in Xara has the following tag embedded in it:

<!--[if gte IE 9]><!-->
<div id="xr_xr" class="xr_noc" style="position:relative; text-align:left; margin:0 auto;" onmousedown="xr_mm(event);">
<!--<![endif]-->

This generates a compliance error because not all viewers can use a mouse, so you have to have a handler that is keyboard friendly like "onkeydown" or "onclick". I cannot find how or why this code is generated, or how to change it.

2. If you set a line of text within a paragraph to be bold, Xara uses <span> tags with CSS font-weight property to do that:

<span class="xr_tl Quote xr_s3" style="top: 163.41px;">this is important</span>

But that is a WCAG violation because screen readers for blind visitors cannot convey that the text is bold/important.

3. When you apply a link to be opened in a new tab or window, WCAG guidelines say that it should have a title or aria-label attribute to warn that the link will open in a new window. Xara just generates the "target=blank" attribute without a warning, and there is no way within the program to add a title or aria-label to the link.

Since it is the law in the US that all government and business websites be WCAG compliant, these kinds of compliance issues that are generated by the Xara code pose a problem for my clients. Is WCAG compliance an issue that Xara is addressing? When could we expect an update that would bring the Xara generated code into legal compliance for US companies?

If anyone knows of work-arounds for these issues in the meantime I would much appreciate any guidance you can give me.

Thanks,
Summer Murphy
A Better Web, Inc.

[Acorn]

Summer, the first example is a Downlevel-revealed Comment: it will be exposed/used for IE9 and above and any non-IE browsers.
I don't know what the mousedown function call is for but I would assume there is an equivalent keydown event elsewhere.
It should not be a compliance error unless your scanner can advise there is no keydown event handling this.

I find is strange that a screen reader cannot determine a font's emphasis from CSS.
If really so, will a font that has bold variant work instead?
The text itself is explaining the importance.

Is is fairly standard jQuery to add a caption, alt text or an external link icon to such links.

A lot of WCAG is Advisory.
Have you detailed violation information as if you know what WCAG is telling you, it provides alternatives.

Acorn

P.S. I am all for ARIA inclusion but it is a very big undertaking.

[Spiffy3502]

Summer, the first example is a Downlevel-revealed Comment: it will be exposed/used for IE9 and above and any non-IE browsers.
I don't know what the mousedown function call is for but I would assume there is an equivalent keydown event elsewhere.
It should not be a compliance error unless your scanner can advise there is no keydown event handling this.

I find is strange that a screen reader cannot determine a font's emphasis from CSS.
If really so, will a font that has bold variant work instead?
The text itself is explaining the importance.

Is is fairly standard jQuery to add a caption, alt text or an external link icon to such links.

A lot of WCAG is Advisory.
Have you detailed violation information as if you know what WCAG is telling you, it provides alternatives.

Acorn

P.S. I am all for ARIA inclusion but it is a very big undertaking.

Thanks, Acorn, I appreciate the response. I actually use multiple scanners, and the reports I get flag three categories of issues by level of priority, the top priority being considered the most problematic for accessibility. I have been able to eliminate all of the errors except for that comment with the mousedown event, and that one is flagged as a top priority error. There does not seem to be an equivalent keydown event and I am unable to eliminate that error unless I manually remove those lines of code after publishing.

WCAG compliance is a big undertaking, but I maintain several medical practice web sites that take Medicaid and Medicare patients and they are under more scrutiny about compliance than most small businesses would be.

I also agree that it seems some of the issues could be solved by updates to the screen readers, such as the CSS issue. If the scanner can tell that the text is bold from the CSS, why is that not something the screen readers could determine also? But it is not up to the manufacturers of ability aids to give those with other abilities equal access to the web - that's up to us.

As I said, I have figured out how to eliminate all of the errors other than that first one I mentioned. If you have any ideas on that I welcome the input.

Thanks,
Summer

[Acorn]

Summer, the complete set of statements in your own website is:

<!--[if gte IE 9]><!-->
<div id="xr_xr" class="xr_noc" style="position: relative; text-align: left; margin: 0px auto; width: 1120px; height: 4650px;" onmousedown="xr_mm(event);">
<!--<![endif]-->
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<div class="xr_ap" id="xr_xr" style="width: 1120px; height: 4650px; left:50%; margin-left: -560px; text-align: left; top:0px;">
<![endif]-->

It is being used across all scrolling and transition websites so all you can do to avoid it is switch to a conventional website presentation and build all into one page.
For screen readers, the MP4 download is a long wait for little benefit so you could put these into pop-up layers and include loading="lazy".

I see you are using HTML Filter v9.9.0.0 so I'm guessing this is the latest magix XDA.
Switching to Xara Pro+ gets you to v10.0.0.15. Nothing major in itself but you can shave payload by using more modern image filetypes (WebP) and gain from using SVG for graphics in many cases.
What would be key is the means to direct-line Xara with your concerns; Magix takes aeons.

Acorn