Visually hidden
Use when an element needs to be available to assistive technology (for example, a screen reader) but otherwise hidden.
Examples
Always provide a heading for a major page section such as a card. In rare cases the heading is visually redundant and the meaning is conveyed by context. Rather than omit the heading, wrap the heading in the visually hidden component.
Best practices
Visually hidden should:
- Not be used if semantic markup can make content understandable to people using assistive technology
- Be used to provide extra context when semantic markup isn’t enough
- Be used on any content that is normally present but is being omitted
- Make sense in context when used with a screen reader
Accessibility
See Material Design and development documentation about accessibility for Android:
See Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and API documentation about accessibility for iOS:
The visually hidden component styles text so that it’s not visible, but it is available to assistive technologies like screen readers and other text to speech programs.
The component shouldn’t be used to hide interactive content.