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A11y 101: 1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus

A11y 101: 1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus

Published on June 2, 2025

I’ll be honest, I often question if I’m evaluating this one right. Let’s look at what the text of 1.4.13:

Where receiving and then removing pointer hover or keyboard focus triggers additional content to become visible and then hidden, the following are true:

  • Dismissible: A mechanism is available to dismiss the additional content without moving pointer hover or keyboard focus, unless the additional content communicates an input error or does not obscure or replace other content;
  • Hoverable: If pointer hover can trigger the additional content, then the pointer can be moved over the additional content without the additional content disappearing;
  • Persistent: The additional content remains visible until the hover or focus trigger is removed, the user dismisses it, or its information is no longer valid.

Exception: The visual presentation of the additional content is controlled by the user agent and is not modified by the author.

Breaking this down, what does it mean?

I use my mouse or keyboard to focus on a control. When new content is exposed, I need to follow these rules.

Dismissable

I need to allow the user to dismiss this without moving the mouse or keyboard focus. OK, that is clear, but how do we do it? I can’t move the mouse, and I can’t move keyboard focus, then I need another action I can take. This is why we always implement the Escape key to close these exposed layers.

But here’s the trick…

If you hit ESC while one dialog is open, it will close. If you hit ESC while 2 or three are open, they will all close. For single page applications, or modal “sheets,” if users are several levels deep, they go back to the beginning when they hit ESC. You need to keep control of propagation as well as a track of which dialog opened which. As the user hits ESC, we need to stop propagation after closing the dialog. We also need to return focus to the control that opened it.

Hoverable

If I opened the new content with mouse, I also need to move around inside the new content. This does mean that when we are opening it, we are waiting for an exit event before we close it.

Now, that exit event could be a variety of things. Hitting ESC. Mousing over another control that exposes content. Clicking outside the container. The choices are many, but that it is clear how to do it is crucial.

Persistent

The best practice is to use an event tied to a button. This allows the keyboard user to activate the button to open it and close it. This also benefits users who rely on voice control. The mouse user can also open by clicking, or you can add hover to open the area. But mousing out on it’s own won’t close it. That needs another event that is clear the user is done with this object.

For me this is where I always got confused. What does it mean to be persistent? For how long? What if I click somewhere else on the page? Do I have to close the dialog before moving to some other control?

Persistent means once opened, it stays open until you close it. To close it you can do any of the following:

  • Escape key
  • Close button
  • Hover over another active control that exposes content
  • Click event elsewhere on the page
  • Activating a control inside the exposed content

Best practice: Use at least one in addition to the ESC key.

Have more questions? Want to discuss this? Find me on LinkedIn and BlueSky!

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A11y 101: WCAG 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)

A11y 101: WCAG 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)

Published on December 9, 2024

This week we’re still talking about video. They say a picture can say one thousand words. Video is thousands of images that tells us more than what the audio alone says. Most video on the web these days is between 24 and 30 frames per second. That potentially would put a one minute video at roughly 1.8 million words. Even if 30 frames equal one picture, you are still responsible for up to 60,000 words. How do we do this?

Continue reading A11y 101: WCAG 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)
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Granting the User Control

Granting the User Control

Published on September 1, 2015

More than once I have spoken about giving the user control over their experience. Too often we make assumptions about how things should work, but in the end those assumptions always forget someone. Providing a set of tools for the user to control the situation or experience allows us to have the most rich and dynamic experience we can build, but one that any user can get behind even if they can’t do all the fancy bells and whistles.

One such example is animation in social media. We love (I know I do) to post animated gifs, videos, vines, and cool new web animations in a place where our friends and colleagues can see. For me, many of these (especially videos and animations) will trigger a vertigo attack. The wrong kind of animation could cause someone with photo-sensitive epilepsy to have a seizure. I have a little faith left in humanity and hope no one posts these kinds of things with the intent to harm, but we can do better.

I’m not asking you to stop posting these. Instead I’m asking to give your followers control. If you come across a video full of violence, profanity, or sexual content while at work (or somewhere you would be embarrassed to get caught viewing it), you appreciate when that video has a NSFW (not safe for work) tag on it. We have learned what this means and now have the choice to view it or save it for when we are less likely to be embarrassed if caught.

We also have TW (trigger warning) for articles that contain descriptions of sexual assault, abuse, or suicide. We recognize that some people out there will be dramatically affected if they read these things, so we let them know up front it could happen. They can then choose to keep reading or not. They have the choice and the control.

So, I’m pushing for two new tags. One warns users that the content may cause dizziness, the other warns against possible seizure inducement.

#DZY

DZY, short for dizzy, but a clear concise item that takes up no more than 4 characters (if including the octothorpe – #). It communicates that the following content may cause some vertigo, motion sickness, or dizziness in some users. Putting this in a tweet with a link allows users like myself to decide if they want to click on it. The user has control. They can click through knowing they will see movement (knowing goes a big way in prevention), or if they are having a bad vertigo day (like I am right now) they can avoid it completely.

#SZR

SZR, short for seizure, is the same concept but for things that strobe and flash. Nothing should ever be created in a strobing or flashing manner that riggers epileptic attacks, but if you aren’t sure if it will, you can now warn your followers and users that something is coming that could.

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I’m on CtrlClickCast Podcast Episode 49Nat Tarnoff

I’m on CtrlClickCast Podcast Episode 49

Published on July 30, 2015

Last fall I met the great hosts of CtrlClickCast at CSSDevConf and they were gracious enough to invite me on the show. I got together with Lea & Emily last week and recorded an episode on Accessibility. It was super fun! I hope to do more podcasts (but I need a better mic!).

The episode is now live! Go listen to it. Really, right now. I’ll wait. It’s about 50 minutes long and Emily and Lea have had the show nominated for the Net Awards recently, it’s a really great show.

Here is a direct link to the full transcript.

I’m not embedding the podcast here because I want you to go to iTunes or Stitcher and subscribe. And after you listen, give a review!

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Managing Chronic Illness While WorkingNat Tarnoff in a purple baseball cap and flannel. Nat has a long sugar and cinnamon beard. They are wearing tiger striped glasses.

Managing Chronic Illness While Working

Published on April 13, 2015

Shortly after I developed my vestibular disorder, I began working remote, from home. Even before that, my employer accommodated me by letting me work from home if I ever had a really bad vertigo day. For the last two years, all my work has been remote, until this month. I’ve now figured out that I have a way of working that best meets my productivity and health needs and when I don’t get to work like that I get cranky, frustrated, and highly inefficient.

For the last five weeks I have been consulting on a project in Minnesota. This has required me traveling to the Twin Cities and staying in AirBNBs during the week and coming home on weekends to be with my kids. This particular client felt they needed me onsite to teach their team in the ways of front-end development and user experience in addition to providing a design solution. Not realizing I had a way of working that worked best for me, I gladly obliged. What I didn’t see coming is someone micromanaging everything I do and how that would make me feel.

When I work remote, I typically work 50 to 60 hours a week and it doesn’t bother me. In fact I enjoy it. But these hours are never worked in a typical “9 to 5” fashion. I try not to get up with an alarm, when I get a headache or vertigo I take a rest or a walk, I work in three or four hour sprints and do get through two or three of these a day. Some days I need to work six hours. Others I can work twelve or even sixteen hours. When I need to go see a doctor (which happens quite a bit) or take care of my family, I do it and put the hours in later.

they often ask me, “How do you do it every day?”

During this contract though, my client has insisted that I work not only onsite, but 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. No more. I can’t work 10 hours if I’m in the zone. I can’t leave early or mid day and take a nap if I need one. I’ve also been asked to do 4 months worth of work in under two. If I could work my way, even while in the Twin Cities, I could probably accomplish this extreme goal. But since I’m limited to billing 40 hours a week, I keep having to adjust timelines and that makes me feel horrid.

When I speak to people about my migraines and vertigo, they often ask me, “How do you do it every day?” I honestly don’t know. I’m the kind of person that if I do absolutely nothing all day, I feel horrible and unproductive. So despite having health issues that probably should leave me in bed, I get up and work. I do something. I don’t get a choice. In the past, before my vestibular disorder, I would work and work and work, eventually crashing because I didn’t maintain a healthy balance. Since I developed the vestibular disorder, I’ve learned to manage each moment and day a little better. Yes, there are days, weeks even, when I will over do it and I pay for it in the end. I’m left incapacitated for an entire day or several. I’ve spent weekends in bed because I didn’t manage my work load in a week.

And I can feel it coming now. I see the crash on the horizon and I don’t know how to stop it, because I’m in a contract I can’t terminate in which I’m being micromanaged and trying to fit my health needs around someone else’s idea of work, rather than fitting work around my health.

As managers, employers, and coworkers it is important that when someone with chronic illness is working with you, it is important to talk with them to find out what they need to be the best at their jobs. For some, it will be working from home on a slightly odd schedule. For others it will be having the right equipment in the office. But for all of us, if we have the right tools, environment, schedule, and understanding to work our way we will be reliable and produce quality work. When we are forced to prioritize work over taking care of ourselves, we will not achieve the goals we set out with you.

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