• Success Criterion 1.4.4
  • Conformance level AA

Button or Nav Text That Overflows Its Fixed-Size Container

1.4.4 — Resize Text

Scenario

Setting

A podcast app's episode list

What’s wrong

Text in fixed-size buttons/nav wrapping out of view or overlapping icons.

Example

.play-btn { width: 80px; height: 32px; white-space: nowrap; }
<!-- "Play Episode 12" overflows and clips outside the button at 200% zoom -->

Why it matters

A listener zoomed in to read small text can't tell which episode a button plays once its label spills outside the button's edges.

How to test

Set zoom to 200% and inspect fixed-size buttons/nav items: text should wrap or the container should grow — if it overflows outside the visible button, it fails.

How to fix

Let buttons grow with their content instead of fixing both width and height; wrap or scroll rather than clip.

.play-btn { min-width: 80px; height: auto; padding: 6px 12px; white-space: normal; }

Outcome

The listener reads each episode button's full label clearly and taps the right one the first time.

Who is affected

Low-vision users, who lose the ability to distinguish between similarly labeled episode buttons once the text clips.

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