Re: ISSUE-636 ACTION-1398 Provide spec. text for aria-roledescription

I'm also going to be bringing in some people from our Data Visualization team to this effort who are doing a lot of work with SVG at the moment.

Regards,
James


On Apr 2, 2014, at 9:24 AM, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
> 
> Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com> wrote on 04/02/2014 06:01:26 AM:
> 
> > From: Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com>
> > To: James Craig <jcraig@apple.com>
> > Cc: W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>, Alex Piñeiro 
> > <apinheiro@igalia.com>
> > Date: 04/02/2014 06:02 AM
> > Subject: Re: ISSUE-636 ACTION-1398 Provide spec. text for aria-roledescription
> > 
> > On 04/02/2014 03:25 AM, James Craig wrote:
> > 
> > > That doesn't preclude the usefulness of a localized role description
> > > though. It allows authors to make these reasonably understandable
> > > immediately, even if it takes us years to codify the entire role
> > > taxonomy,
> > 
> > Fair enough. But in the specific case of ATK/AT-SPI ATs, the usefulness
> > of a localized role description is less than the usefulness of our
> > existing platform accessibility API which provides:
> > 
> > 1. A role type which makes it possible for ATs to determine what an
> >    object is functionally (video instead of group; slide instead of
> >    section)
> > 
> > 2. A corresponding localized role description ready to go so that we
> >    can make them reasonably understandable ourselves.
> > 
> > Having said that, it admittedly does absolutely nothing for the other
> > platforms. So I'm thinking the best way forward might be to solve this
> > by a combination of localized role descriptions (target == not-ATK) and
> > UAIG mappings (for ATK).
> > 
> > In some cases I think it should JustWork(tm). Taking your earlier example,
> > 
> > >>> 1. <video> in HTML might default to <video role="group"
> > aria-roledescription="video">
> > 
> > For ATK, the role="group" should not be used for the mapping, preferring
> > instead the more specific ATK_ROLE_VIDEO based on the HTML tag.
> > 
> > Taking another example you had mentioned:
> > 
> 
> >   3. SVG could use <g role="group" aria-roledescription="chart">
> > 
> > For ATK, hopefully we could have implementors map it to ATK_ROLE_CHART.
> > 
> > If no one objects to that approach, I'm happy to do what needs to be
> > done w.r.t. coming up with a list of ATK-only role mappings we'd find
> > preferable to role descriptions.
> > 
> 
> OK. Knowing something is a chart is incredibly inadequate - there are lots of different types of charts and navigation strategies to operate them. That is why we are forming a subteam to address graphics. I am going to be bringing Fred Esch in from IBM Watson Analytics to work with us on this effort. I would appreciate your participation. With SVG and canvas we will be able to navigate into and around charts. You may have met him at CSUN. He presented on the RAVE Rapid Adaptive Visualization Engine used in IBM analytics.
> 
> > BUT that still leaves at least one noticeable/unmappable area: What
> > happens when there is no non-generic tag AND there is no ARIA role; just
> > the localized description? Consider this modification of your original
> > video example:
> > 
> >     <div role="group" aria-roledescription="video">
> > 
> > ATK still wants that mapped as ATK_ROLE_VIDEO, but there's no
> > programmatic way for the user agents to get there from here. Ideas?
> > 
> > >> Given an object the screen reader knows is a slide, if the bounds of a
> > >> focused object on that slide have suddenly changed, this event is
> > >> probably worth passing along to the end user. But, at least in my
> > >> experience, the slide situation is the exception and not the rule:
> > >> Bounds change often but those changes are often of no interest to the
> > >> user and should thus be filtered out by the screen reader.
> > >
> > > I agree that sounds useful, though slightly off-topic.
> > 
> > Thank you re useful. :) I don't think it is off-topic. At least for ATK
> > we have existing API through which Orca could:
> > 
> > 1. present "slide" as the role AND
> > 2. speak the "hey, you just moved your layout area down 20 pixels"
> > 
> > The first it could accomplish by falling back on a localized role
> > description. But the second is not something localized role descriptions
> > provide. And if you are a user who is blind actively editing slides in a
> > web app, how useful is it to hear "slide" (which you probably already
> > knew)? In contrast, how useful would it be to hear, "your layout area is
> > no longer where you want it to be?"
> > 
> > Maybe we cannot codify the entire role taxonomy, but perhaps if we have
> > some important usecases we are failing to address now, we can try to
> > turn those into proper ARIA roles for 1.1. That wouldn't mean we
> > couldn't also have localized role descriptions.
> > 
> > --joanie
> > 
>