Re: aria-describedat

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis, Thu, 22 Mar 2012 06:52:15 +0000:
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Leif Halvard Silli:

> Why is "role" so special?

Historical reasons: The PF did not create it. It was created as part of 
XHTML2 and thus lives in the XHTML namespace - and thus of course did 
not need any prefix in XHTML/HTML. But in SVG, they had to define it as 
a native attribute in order that authors should not need to do 
xhtml:role=''. But, from another angle, it also makes some sense that 
the one attribute that can affect what aria- prefixed attribute one is 
allowed to use, itself is not prefixed.

>> * It learns from the antipattern set by @longdesc and @summary:
>>  Unique names for seldom used/seen attributes is no good. Better
>>  with an often seen prefix for a range of related attributes.

> If we take the
> view that user agents should be building UI on top of ARIA (like this
> spec for @aria-describedat does), I don't think the ARIA attributes
> are especially "related" to each other.

Authors are higher priority than UA vendors, in our HTML design 
principles.

> Why don't we just add new common document and
> application semantics to HTML and recommend other markup languages
> reuse HTML features rather than reinventing the wheel?

It has its advantages that ARIA is *not* defined by the HTMLwg.

>> @aria-DESCRIBEDat, is not completely void of benefits:
>> 
>> * It indicates relationship to aria-DESCRIBEDby
> 
> What relationship? The one where authors get utterly confused between
> the two? ;)

You are right: Those are two sides of the same coin.

>> * The 'AT' part has hyperlink connotations - @.
> 
> Twitter? Email? If "hyperlink connotations" are good, then surely
> "url" or "href" have stronger connotations.

I think, of your proposals, then aria-describedATURL, made some sense. 
But then, why not just say aria-describedBYurl ? Then both likeness and 
difference should be obvious? What you think about that?

>> * Less technical than 'fooURL'
> 
> How is that better? If it's better, how about "descriptionlink"?

I am not member of the ARIA task force ... But I could certainly live 
with aria-descrptionlink, if my arguments in favor of current name or 
aria-describedbyURL etc are found week.

>> and leads the thought towards the content that one points to
> 
> I think that's an implicit aspect of any name that suggests a hyperlink…

Why not just @aria-href then?

>> and thus delegitimizes misuse.
> 
> No, it encourages misuse since it does not make the data type clear.

We could then say the same thing about aria-label, aria-labelledby, 
aria-describedby and about other attributes too. Btw, the @usemap is 
probably the attribute that most often get a idref as content rather 
than a URL ... So, yes, it is important to help authors.
-- 
leif h silli

Received on Thursday, 22 March 2012 12:36:07 UTC