RE: 48-Hour Call for Consensus (CfC); Publish 1 ARIA FPWD & 2 ARIA Heartbeats

There appears to be a conflict regarding the aria-hidden attribute spec text and what is actually recommended for its use.

E.G at
https://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/eaf032dc62e0dc3c25b76db0f2300f972eff6977/aria/aria.html#terms

Under Terms > Hidden, it states the following in a note:

"Note: Authors are reminded that visibility:hidden and display:none apply to all CSS media types ; therefore, use of either will hide the content from assistive technologies that access the DOM through a rendering engine. However, in order to support assistive technologies that access the DOM directly, or other authoring techniques to visibly hide content (for example, opacity or off-screen positioning), authors need to ensure the aria-hidden attribute is always updated accordingly when an element is shown or hidden, unless the intent of using off-screen positioning is to make the content visible only to screen reader users and not others."

This makes sense, since it would ensure that aria-hidden is not needed on elements that already include display:none, but would be included within offscreen layers such as within carousels so that only the currently visible slide is shown at one time. It also provides instruction for when offscreen text should not include aria-hidden in order to provide screen reader accessible information when needed.

However, within the spec text at
https://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/eaf032dc62e0dc3c25b76db0f2300f972eff6977/aria/aria.html#aria-hidden

It states the following:

"If an element is only visible after some user action, authors MUST set the aria-hidden attribute to true. When the element is presented, authors MUST set the aria-hidden attribute to false or remove the attribute, indicating that the element is visible. Some assistive technologies access WAI-ARIA information directly through the DOM and not through platform accessibility supported by the browser. Authors MUST set aria-hidden ="true" on content that is not displayed, regardless of the mechanism used to hide it. This allows assistive technologies or user agents to properly skip hidden elements in the document."

The spec text directly contradicts the guidance in the note, by saying that all hidden content, offscreen or otherwise, must include aria-hidden='true'.

-----Original Message-----
From: janina@rednote.net [mailto:janina@rednote.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 10:37 AM
To: W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: 48-Hour Call for Consensus (CfC); Publish 1 ARIA FPWD & 2 ARIA Heartbeats

Colleagues:

This is a Call for Consensus (CfC) to the Protocols and Formats Working Group to approve publication of the following three ARIA related
documents:

*	A First Public Working Draft (FP:WD of the 

Accessible Name and Description: Computation and API Mappings https://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/6cd22e8b0a834c4a54b7c6e4496a5887cc43f7ea/accname-aam/accname-aam.html

*	Updated (heartbeat) drafts of the following 2 documents:

Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1
https://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/edfde333e76d19c4bf7a421978eaf89b7d9701e6/core-aam/core-aam.html

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1 https://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/eaf032dc62e0dc3c25b76db0f2300f972eff6977/aria/aria.html
 
ACTION TO TAKE

According to our agreed Consensus Procedures, this CfC is now open for objection, comment, as well as statements of support via email. Silence will be interpreted as support, though messages of support are certainly welcome.

If you object to this proposed action, or have comments concerning this proposal, please respond by replying on list to this message no later than 17:00 (5PM) Boston Time on Friday 5 December.

Janina


-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Received on Wednesday, 3 December 2014 19:28:10 UTC