Re: Change proposal for ISSUE-85

Hi maciej,

> Why is interpretation of WAI-ARIA role taxonomy a relevant consideration for what roles should be allowed for <a>?

the current change proposal is a part of a wider set of proposed
changes to the current spec[1] being discussed publically in the html
accessibility taskforce aria-mapping sub group. This is still under
discussion and not yet agreed upon. When it is it will be brought to
the HTML wg for further discussion. Note that anybody who is
interested can be involved in the discussion in the a11y taskforce.

We are attempting to provide a consistent approach to the restrictions
that should be placed on role usage related to common characteristics
of roles. We are using the arai role taxanomy as a guide as it
indicates how roles are categorised.

>So it seems that aspect of the proposal details is not justified by the rationale.

This is correct and the proposal needs to be udpated to reflect your concerns.

regards
Stevef

[1] http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/misc/HTML5/aria-html5-proposal.html

On 16 June 2010 10:13, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 16, 2010, at 2:04 AM, Steven Faulkner wrote:
>
>> Hi Maciej,
>>
>>> Is it at all common to use an <a> element as a radio button, slider, scrollbar or progress bar? I don't believe I have ever seen any of those in the wild.
>>
>> the choice of roles is not based on common usage its based on an
>> interpretation of the WAI-ARIA role taxonomy.
>
> Why is interpretation of WAI-ARIA role taxonomy a relevant consideration for what roles should be allowed for <a>? The rationale for your Change Proposal does not cite "the role taxonomy says so" as an argument, rather it cites the fact that Web developers are already using <a> for some non-link purposes, and it gives specific examples. I don't see any examples there of <a> being used as a slider, scrollbar, progress bar or radio button. So it seems that aspect of the proposal details is not justified by the rationale.
>
> I can see a potential argument for <a role=button> based on the fact that <a> elements are often (mis)used as buttons, and disallowing it may lead authors to make their content less accessible instead of more semantically correct. But that reasoning does not apply to <a role=progressbar>. Since authors are not making that semantic error currently, there doesn't seem to be a practical benefit to allowing it.
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Maciej
>
>



-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

www.paciellogroup.com | www.wat-c.org
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Received on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 09:43:50 UTC