Tell a screen reader to ignore placeholder text within an input tag?

Question

Some of the placeholder text I have in my app is a bit ridiculous for a screen reader (a sample MAC address, for example).

Is there a way I can tell a screen reader to ignore only the placeholder text?

Answer 1

You can use a meaningful placeholder. If you really want to define what a mac address should look like but don't want it to be read (for whatever reason), you can use the aria-hidden attribute on some other element.

<label>MAC Address:
   <input type="text" placeholder="Enter your mac address here" />
   <span aria-hidden="true">(e.g. FF-AA-BB-CC-DD-EE)</span>
</label>

We can guess that a blind user who will have to type its MAC address should already know what it looks like. Best way would be to provide a help link to a glossary.