Response to your comments on Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0

Dear Gregory Rosmaita:



Thank you for your comments on the 24 February 2009 Last Call Working
Draft of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20090224/). The Protocols and
Formats Working Group has reviewed all comments received on the draft. We
would like to know whether we have understood your comments correctly and
whether you are satisfied with our resolutions.



Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to us
by 1 February 2010 to say whether you accept them or to discuss additional
concerns you have with our response. You can respond in the following
ways:



* If you have a W3C account, we request that you respond online at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/comments/acknowledge?document_version_id=1;



* Else, by email to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org (be sure to reference our
comment ID so we can track your response). Note that this list is publicly
archived.



Please see below for the text of comments that you submitted and our
resolutions to your comments. Each comment includes a link to the archived
copy of your original comment on
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/, and may also
include links to the relevant changes in the Accessible Rich Internet
Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 editors' draft at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/20091214/.



Due to the scope of changes made in response to comments on the Last Call
Working Draft of WAI-ARIA, we are returning the specification to Working
Draft status. We will shortly publish a public "stabilization draft" of
WAI-ARIA and updated Working Drafts of the accompanying documents. While
these versions will not incorporate further discussion based on your
acknowledgement of our response to your comments, we will work with you on
your feedback as part of our preparation for the following version. You are
also welcome to submit new comments on the new public versions in addition
to sending your acknowledgement of our response to your previous comments.



Note that if you still strongly disagree with our resolution on an issue,
you have the opportunity to file a formal objection (according to 3.3.2 of
the W3C Process, at
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#WGArchiveMinorityViews)
to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org. Formal objections will be reviewed during
the candidate recommendation transition meeting with the W3C Director,
unless we can come to agreement with you on a resolution in advance of the
meeting.



Thank you for your time reviewing and sending comments. Though we cannot
always do exactly what each commenter requests, all of the comments are
valuable to the development of Accessible Rich Internet Applications
(WAI-ARIA) 1.0.



Regards,



Janina Sajka, PFWG Chair

Michael Cooper, PFWG Staff Contact


Comment 42: role="form" missing (closest construct: role="search")
Date: 2009-04-08
Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2009AprJun/0035.html
Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20090224/>
Status: Accepted proposal

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Your comment:
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i don't know how this slipped through the cracks, but it seems to be

a rather glaring omission to me...



In re-reviewing the ARIA 1.0 Last Call draft for the umpteenth time,

it struck me that while there is a role for "search" there is no 

role for "form", as not all forms are search forms, and the "search"

role designates more than merely "here are form controls" but binds 

any explanatory and complimentary text included in the "search" 

area...



In neither Section 4.3.4. "Document Structure" [1], or Section 4.3.6. 

"Landmark Roles" [2] does there appear a "form" role



While there are specific form control roles defined by ARIA 1.0, there

is no "meta" role, "form" which can be used to bind all such elements 

(as well as any declarative FORM elements) into a cohesive section 

named "form" 



This is important to address for ARIA 1.0 because today's web is
extremely

forms-driven -- e.g. networking sites, twitter, blogs, web mail clients, 

ecommerce, security prompts, CAPTCHAs, etc.  Therefore, it is necessary 

to have a "form" landmark region that provides a means of binding forms 

composed of a mixture of declarative markup and scripting into a single 

region



In contemplating the lack of a "form" role, i have convinced myself that 

the place for a "form" role is in the XHTML Vocab document, located at:



http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab#



as "form" is a role that should properly be defined in the list of 

default roles.



Additionally, XHTML2 will be using XForms as its Forms module, so 

role="form" could serve as a flag to an application that an xforms (or 

javascript-enabled xform [3]) follows and that whatever special 

processing is necessitated should be fired and remain in effect until the


user chooses to leave forms/xforms mode and re-enter "normal" (or 

"non-forms") mode or until the form/xform has been submitted.



the OWL for a such a landmark role named "form" would be:



   <owl:Class rdf:ID="form">

      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>

      <role:nameFrom>author</role:nameFrom>

   </owl:Class>



but i think that the predefined role of "form" should be something

defined in the XHTML vocabulary document as a pre-defined role (that

is, part of the Role Module) and not "just" in ARIA 1.0



this topic was broached during the 8 April 2009 XHTML2 WG teleconference;

the discussion can be found using the following URI:



http://www.w3.org/2009/04/08-xhtml-minutes.html#item03



note that the chair of the XHTML2 WG, Roland Merrick, assigned himself 

an action item to discuss a "form" role with the XForms group -- it is 

highly advisable that any such discussion have PF participation, since

the "form" role is an urgently needed repair strategy for today's web

content, and a critical landmark for anyone attempting to use a mashed-

up form...



roland's action is documented at:



http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/tracker/actions/71



References:



[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/#roleatttribute_inherits



[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/#structural



[3] ubiquity-xforms: 

* http://code.google.com/p/ubiquity-xforms

* http://code.google.com/p/ubiquity-xforms/wiki/ImplementationStatus

--------------------------------
Response from the Working Group:
--------------------------------
We have added a form role to the spec.

Received on Tuesday, 15 December 2009 00:34:07 UTC