Re: ACTION-2092 - Proposal ready for review - Create a proposal for handling the role description value of ""

In my opinion allowing aria-roledescription="" opens up far more 
possibilities for author error than role="static" does. In my opinion it 
is moving in the wrong direction.



On 7/5/2016 3:31 PM, Rich Schwerdtfeger wrote:
> James,
>
> I agree it is a hack. This is temporary. I agree with your reasoning 
> for option 2 even though I understand Matt’s position as we enabling 
> authors with another tool to manipulate how a role is presented 
> verbally to the user. Yet, in the absent of a special role to handle 
> this case this is what we have.
>
> James Craig indicated we should not make this a recommended technique. 
> I agree but it should be a valid option for authors until we release 
> an alternative.
>
> As much as I agree with Matt’s proposal for 1 and 3 we will not reach 
> consensus if we choose 1 or 3 and we will be back to the stale mate we 
> had in the past. I don’t want to open up that can of worms again and 
> we need to get on with ARIA 1.1 so that we can address, frankly, much 
> larger issues with ARIA 2.0.
>
> Rich
>
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
>
>
>
>
>> On Jul 5, 2016, at 5:09 PM, James Nurthen <james.nurthen@oracle.com 
>> <mailto:james.nurthen@oracle.com>> wrote:
>>
>> In my opinion we should have a text/static role as (as I stated 
>> previously). The whole aria-roledescription="" thing sounds like a 
>> hack. If it were not for the use cases where we need the static role 
>> I would favour either options (1) or (3) but due to the fact that we 
>> have abandoned the text/static role - with one of the major arguments 
>> being that we could use aria-roledescription to accomplish the same 
>> thing, I feel we have to go for option (2).
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> James
>>
>>
>> On 7/5/2016 2:50 PM, Rich Schwerdtfeger wrote:
>>> … or you leave the role description off altogether and the default 
>>> is to do nothing (don’t change how the role is processed).
>>>
>>> I do agree there is a concern that authors will put themselves in a 
>>> position where they try to be the screen reader vendor and influence 
>>> the user experience.
>>>
>>>
>>> Rich Schwerdtfeger
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Jul 5, 2016, at 4:27 PM, Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I vote for option 3 in the below proposal. If option 3 is not 
>>>> acceptable to the group, I vote for option 1.
>>>> While allowing ARIA to wipe out screen reader announcement of an 
>>>> element’s role with an empty roledescription makes ARIA more 
>>>> flexible, I think it is unnecessary flexibility that increases the 
>>>> risk of negative side effects and makes debugging problems more 
>>>> complex for authors. As a screen reader user, I already find 
>>>> roledescription scary enough without this added complexity.
>>>> **
>>>> *Matt King*
>>>> **
>>>> *From:*Matt King [mailto:a11yThinker@Gmail.com]
>>>> *Sent:*Tuesday, July 5, 2016 1:53 PM
>>>> *To:*ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org 
>>>> <mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>
>>>> *Subject:*ACTION-2092 - Proposal ready for review - Create a 
>>>> proposal for handling the role description value of “”
>>>> Proposals to specify how null or empty aria-roledescription values 
>>>> will be handled by user agents and assistive technologies are ready 
>>>> for review.
>>>> Following are the proposals. As I explain below, I think this 
>>>> exposes other ambiguities in aria-roledescription that should be 
>>>> plugged.
>>>> In branch action2092option1[1], added the following sentence.
>>>> "If the value of aria-roledescription is empty or contains only 
>>>> white space characters, user agents MUST treat the element as if 
>>>> the aria-roledescription property were not specified."
>>>> In branch action2092option2[2], added the following 2 sentences.
>>>> "If the value of aria-roledescription is empty or contains only 
>>>> white space characters, user agents SHOULD expose the value in a 
>>>> manner consistent with how null values are expressed in their 
>>>> platform accessibility API. If the value is empty or null, 
>>>> assistive technologies MAY render the element as if it does not 
>>>> have a role name."
>>>> In the process of making the above branches, I noticed that there 
>>>> is still significant ambiguity regarding what an assistive 
>>>> technology should do with the roledescription. The actual intent of 
>>>> the property is not clear. For example, if you provide a 
>>>> roledescription for a region, should the assistive technology still 
>>>> treat the element as a region? This ambiguity also has significant 
>>>> impact on the meaning of the note that tells authors how to limit 
>>>> the use of roledescription.
>>>> The issue of how authors, user agents, and assistive technologies 
>>>> may treat null or empty values increases the need to remove these 
>>>> ambiguities. So, I have also proposed an option 3, which equivalent 
>>>> to option 1 but also addresses these issues. I did not make a 
>>>> similar equivalence to option 2 because it is much less clear what 
>>>> the normative authoring and assistive technology guidance should be 
>>>> in that case.
>>>> In branch action2092option3[3]:
>>>> 1. Stated that user agents MUST NOT expose aria-roledescription if 
>>>> it is empty or whitespace (same as option 1)
>>>> 2. Changed the note that contained an implied normative author 
>>>> SHOULD limiting use of the roledescription into a normative author 
>>>> SHOULD.
>>>> 3. Added a normative assistive technology SHOULD statement 
>>>> explaining that roledescription should change only how the name of 
>>>> the role of an element is expressed and should not change which 
>>>> assistive technology functions are provided for an element.
>>>> 4. (editorial) Used a list format to express the authoring and user 
>>>> agent requirements.
>>>> [1] action2092option1 branch:
>>>> http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/action2092option1/aria/aria.html
>>>> [2] action2092option2 branch:
>>>> http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/action2092option2/aria/aria.html
>>>> [3] action2092option3 branch:
>>>> http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/action2092option3/aria/aria.html
>>>> Matt King
>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Regards, James
>>
>> <oracle_sig_logo.gif> <http://www.oracle.com/>
>> James Nurthen | Principal Engineer, Accessibility
>> Phone: +1 650 506 6781 <tel:+1%20650%20506%206781> | Mobile: +1 415 
>> 987 1918 <tel:+1%20415%20987%201918> | Video: james.nurthen@oracle.com
>> Oracle Corporate Architecture
>> 500 Oracle Parkway | Redwood Cty, CA 94065
>> <green-for-email-sig_0.gif> <http://www.oracle.com/commitment> Oracle 
>> is committed to developing practices and products that help protect 
>> the environment
>>
>

-- 
Regards, James

Oracle <http://www.oracle.com>
James Nurthen | Principal Engineer, Accessibility
Phone: +1 650 506 6781 <tel:+1%20650%20506%206781> | Mobile: +1 415 987 
1918 <tel:+1%20415%20987%201918> | Video: james.nurthen@oracle.com 
<sip:james.nurthen@oracle.com>
Oracle Corporate Architecture
500 Oracle Parkway | Redwood Cty, CA 94065
Green Oracle <http://www.oracle.com/commitment> Oracle is committed to 
developing practices and products that help protect the environment

Received on Tuesday, 5 July 2016 22:42:04 UTC