Mutations events and fundamental design of ARIA

> When a web application maintains a local representation of  
> accessibility information through ARIA roles, states, and  
> properties, the user agent MUST provide a method to notify the web  
> application when a change occurs to any of the states or properties.  
> For example, if any software other than the web application (such as  
> the user agent, assistive technology, or a plug-in) were to change  
> the aria-activedescendant attribute of a tablist, the user agent  
> SHOULD fire a DOM mutation event so that the web application can be  
> notified and display the appropriate tabpanel. Likewise, web  
> application authors SHOULD listen for DOM mutation events when  
> possible and update the web application appropriately.
>

This section seems entirely inappropriate. It seems that ARIA  
everywhere else assumes that DOM changes are not 'managed' but instead  
the author scripts all the DOM changes in response to user input.  
Having assistive technology cause a DOM mutation doesn't fit into this  
model at all.

Please remove this section.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:49:46 UTC