Issue/Question
Under the Accessibility Final Checks I receive the Potential Problem: Text may refer to items by shape, size, or relative position alone.
Environment
Cause
Potential problems are either code that may cause errors or possible errors that cannot be automatically checked and require human review.
Omni CMS Final Checks look over all the code on a page and detect accessibility issues that do not meet WCAG 2.0 (Level AA) standards. It has detected that the page possibly contains text that refers to the shape, size, or location of an item. (ex. "the red button", "the link to the right", "the square button"). This is bad practice for accessibility since some users cannot see these. Items location may also move on different size devices.
Resolution
Check over your pages content for any shape, color, or location based references to items on your page. Look for references in your text to visual indicators, like "the red button," or "the left-hand side of the page," or "the square box”. Replace these with text that does not rely solely on these characteristics.
- Check out the page if it is not already.
- Click the Edit tab.
- Click the Edit Button on the content area that contains the text.
- Replace or improve upon the identifying text to not rely solely on shape, color, or location.
- Save the page.
- Click the Publish button to run the accessibility final check again, the potential problem may still show even if the text has been corrected.
Examples:
- “Use the red square button to the right to contact us” would be better as “Use the Contact Us link to get in touch with the ITS Service Desk” since a non-sighted user cannot see the shape or color of the button.
- “Hours are located on the right side of the page” would be better as “Hours can be found in the Locations and Hours section” since it may not always be on the right.