What are the common causes and solutions for text truncation and overlapping issues?

1 WCAG standards for text

WCAG is a set of guidelines that aim to make web content more accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities. One of the principles of WCAG is that web content should be perceivable, which means that users should be able to perceive the information and user interface components presented to them. This includes text, images, audio, video, and other forms of content. WCAG provides several success criteria and techniques for ensuring that text is perceivable, such as using sufficient contrast, size, spacing, alignment, and language.

2 Causes of text truncation and overlapping

Text truncation and overlapping issues can have various causes, depending on the design, layout, and code of your web content. For example, fixed or absolute positioning of text elements can prevent them from adapting to different screen sizes, resolutions, or zoom levels. Additionally, inadequate or inconsistent padding, margin, or line-height values can affect the spacing and alignment of text elements within their containers or with other elements. Furthermore, non-responsive or non-scalable fonts can cause text to be too large or too small for the available space or the user's preferences. Moreover, text-transform or text-overflow properties can alter the appearance or behavior of text elements, such as changing the case, truncating the text with ellipses, or hiding the overflow. Lastly, dynamic or user-generated content can introduce unpredictable or variable text lengths, languages, or formats.

3 Solutions for text truncation and overlapping

Text truncation and overlapping issues can be avoided or resolved by applying various WCAG techniques and best practices. For instance, using relative or flexible positioning of text elements, such as percentages, ems, rems, or viewport units, can allow them to adjust to different screen sizes, resolutions, or zoom levels. Additionally, adequate and consistent padding, margin, or line-height values can ensure that text elements have enough space and alignment within their containers or with other elements. Furthermore, using responsive or scalable fonts like web fonts, font-face, or system fonts can enable text to adapt to the available space or the user's preferences. It is also important to use text-transform or text-overflow properties with caution and provide alternative ways to access the full text. Finally, when dealing with dynamic or user-generated content it is necessary to provide mechanisms to control or limit the text length, language, or format.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?