On Aug 15, 2012, at 12:45 PM, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote: > > On Aug 15, 2012, at 12:32 , John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote: > >> Maciej Stachowiak wrote: >>> >>> I'm pretty sure I didn't suggest that. I don't think a mouth-stick user >>> who is not visually impaired would ever be exposed to the link, >> >> So then this technique is *ONLY* for visually impaired users? > > maybe I am being naive here, but surely the rule is, for any UA "if you expose the link to the user, you must also be prepared to expose the content it links to". Hypertext links are a key issue in this discussion; hidden is important but I think more nuanced. As an author, I can certainly link to content which the UA may not be able to process, beyond downloading it as a binary blob or displaying it as text or a tree. Beyond the role of "link", ARIA 1.0 does not have the concept of following a hyperlink. Nor does it have the concept of recognizing HTML. This is the boundary we're examining. I believe that the concept of a follow-able hyperlink ought to be added and incorporated into an ARIA document, but I consider it a higher level of interaction than what is currently in 1.0. The concept behind longdesc, describedat, or in part, this idea of an extended tree are all somewhat similar to how iframe operates. From the a11y side, I've heard and agree that the bulk of use cases we're discussing are areas where content should be presented to all users in some manner. That's quite different than the typical use of label/describedby; where the content has been made available to the user, and there are simply some issues in the DOM where elements did not map 1:1 to presentation. Many of those issues are being addressed in CSS proposals. The @longdesc semantic ought to exist, but it's not "hidden"; it's really more of an iframe, a popup, a footnote; a sub-section only made available when the user conveys an intent to get more depth or more information. Any user. As I understand things, a11y-centric groups and members have proposed that @longdesc (HTML shorthand) and a new aria-describedat (ARIA next) be minted for the use cases brought up. In contrast, browser developers have asked that the meaning of "hidden" be relaxed so as to backport this feature into existing specs. I would really prefer we keep our existing spec for ARIA hidden semantics, and work together to implement @longdesc, write, test and document the technique. -Charles
Received on Thursday, 16 August 2012 06:06:58 UTC