16.6 Links which are inactive are announced by screen reader (M)
16.6.1 WCAG 1.4.1 (A), 2.4.4 (A) - Desktop, Mobile, iPad
The Course Search page contains a list of ‘A-Z of courses’, letters ‘X-Z’ use a lighter grey coloured text which indicates to the user that they are inactive as there are no courses for these letters.
Colour should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.
This may problematic for colour blind users as they may not be able to perceive the error on the form.
Furthermore, there is no additional information provided to screen reader users to inform them that these links are inactive.
16.6.2 Recommendation
Avoid using colour as the sole method of conveying content. If you are using colour to convey information, make sure to provide a text alternative so that all users are aware that these letters are not active.
Alternatively, consider implementing the disabled
attribute to keep the user from using the element until some other condition has been met (a course starting with the letter X is added). Then, JavaScript could remove the disabled value, and make the element usable again.