Technique F32:Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.2 due to using white space characters to control spacing within a word

Example 1: Failure due to adding white space in the middle of a word

This example has white spaces within a word to space out the letters in a heading. Screen readers may read each letter individually instead of the word "Welcome."

<h1>W e l c o m e</h1>

  can also be used to add white space, producing similar failures:

<h1>H&nbsp;E&nbsp;L&nbsp;L&nbsp;O</h1>

Example 2: White space in the middle of a word changing its meaning

In Japanese, Han characters (Kanji) may have multiple readings that mean very different things. In this example, the word is read incorrectly because screen readers may not recognize these characters as a word because of the white space between the characters. The characters mean "Tokyo," but screen readers say "Higashi Kyo".

<h1>東　京</h1>

Example 3: Using line break characters to format vertical text

In the row header cell of a data table containing Japanese text, authors often create vertical text by using line break characters. However screen readers are not able to read the words in vertical text correctly because the line breaks occur within the word. In the following example, "東京都"(Tokyo-to) will be read "Higashi Kyo Miyako".

<table>
<caption>表1.　都道府県別一覧表</caption>
<tr>
<td></td>
<th scope="col">（見出しセル 1.）</th>
<th scope="col">（見出しセル 2.）</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">東<br />京<br />都</th>
<td>（データセル 1.）</td>
<td>（データセル 2.）</td>
</tr>
・・・・・・
</table>