a11y and text just for screen readers

In Kraken, Keel, and pretty much any site I build, I use the .screen-reader class to visually hide content that I still want available to screen readers. It’s an approach I adapted from the HTML5 Boilerplate.

You can also set content to reappear if in focus (useful for things like skip nav links for sighted keyboard users).

/**
 * Visually hide an element, but leave it available for screen readers
 * @link https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/dist/css/main.css
 * @link http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/hiding-content-for-accessibility
 */
.screen-reader {
	border: 0;
	clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
	height: 1px;
	margin: -1px;
	overflow: hidden;
	padding: 0;
	position: absolute;
	width: 1px;
}

/**
 * Extends the .screen-reader class to allow the element to be focusable when navigated to via the keyboard
 * @link https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/dist/css/main.css
 * @link https://www.drupal.org/node/897638
 */
.screen-reader-focusable:active,
.screen-reader-focusable:focus {
	clip: auto;
	height: auto;
	margin: 0;
	overflow: visible;
	position: static;
	width: auto;
}

However, I just learned that on some screen readers, that width: 1px setting can cause all of the text inside to collapse into a single word. For example:

<a class="screen-reader" href="#main">Skip to the main content</a>

Would get read aloud as:

Skiptothemainnav

Fortunately, J. Renée Beach has fix! Just add white-space: nowrap; to prevent the collapse:

/**
 * Visually hide an element, but leave it available for screen readers
 * @link https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/dist/css/main.css
 * @link http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/hiding-content-for-accessibility
 */
.screen-reader {
	border: 0;
	clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
	height: 1px;
	margin: -1px;
	overflow: hidden;
	padding: 0;
	position: absolute;
	white-space: nowrap;
	width: 1px;
}

And for focus visible text, I set it back to normal.

/**
 * Extends the .screen-reader class to allow the element to be focusable when navigated to via the keyboard
 * @link https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/dist/css/main.css
 * @link https://www.drupal.org/node/897638
 */
.screen-reader-focusable:active,
.screen-reader-focusable:focus {
	clip: auto;
	height: auto;
	margin: 0;
	overflow: visible;
	position: static;
	white-space: normal;
	width: auto;
}