[Bug 23970] add advice on use of menu roles for site nav links

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23970

--- Comment #4 from dmacdona <david100@sympatico.ca> ---
Further comments from Paul Jackson after I deleted the changes citing need for
further investigation...

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Thanks David for clearing that up. Thank you also for leaning towards deleting
the edits and bringing this back to the authoring committee.

Even if your document is non-normative, it still should reflect best practices,
including respecting existing implementations, and should not be discouraging
people from doing things that improve accessibility and usability for users,
especially when there was nothing before that discouraged such things (i.e.,
WAI-ARIA and it's supporting documents never even hinted that it shouldn't be
used that way).

A lot has changed since the spec was first put out, so I'd argue that what the
authors originally intended is not really relevant any more. People have found
WAI-ARIA menus to be a good way to improve accessibility and usability of
navigation menus, especially in a world where touchscreens are quickly becoming
the dominant interface. A lot has also been learned through user testing and
live implementations so this coaching document should reflect how the usage of
WAI-ARIA has evolved for the better rather than what the authors originally
intended.

We strive to follow the best practices from the W3C but they have to make sense
and put users first. It can be quite frustrating when you do something that
users have repeatedly requested and works well for them yet could be
discouraged by an upcoming best practice put out by the W3C, especially when
there is no credible evidence that supports discouraging such practices.

Thanks again for clarifying and I hope that the authoring committee not only
chooses to not discourage the use of WAI-ARIA menus for navigation but also
chooses to provide guidance to help people to improve WAI-ARIA menus for
navigation (but I would be happy if we at least get the first one).

Paul

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Received on Sunday, 19 January 2014 02:29:06 UTC