Re: How is aria-interactive different than tabindex=-1

"White, Jason J" <jjwhite@ets.org> wrote on 05/20/2015 02:35:21 PM:
> Perhaps the ARIA 2.0 discussion will be a suitable 
> opportunity to rework the approach and to establish foundations for 
> long-term extensibility. The integration of ARIA with Web components
> could also ease the burden on application authors.

For ARIA 1.1, the question is whether to:
1) Move forward with aria-interactive as currently proposed [1]
OR
2) Add table-specific roles to ARIA 1.1.

[1] 
http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/matt-action1505/aria/aria.html#aria-interactive


Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
mattking@us.ibm.com



From:   "White, Jason J" <jjwhite@ets.org>
To:     Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, 
Cc:     "Gunderson, Jon R" <jongund@illinois.edu>, Dominic Mazzoni 
<dmazzoni@google.com>, W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>, 
Alexander Surkov <surkov.alexander@gmail.com>
Date:   05/20/2015 02:43 PM
Subject:        Re: How is aria-interactive different than tabindex=-1



> On May 20, 2015, at 16:43, Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> "Gunderson, Jon R" <jongund@illinois.edu> wrote on 05/20/2015 12:55:43 
PM:
>> I am wondering how the proposed aria-interactive is different from
>> tabindex=-1?
>> Both indicate an element has behavior, and the absence of tabindex
>> attribute means no behavior (e.g. aria-interactive=false)
>
> Tabindex does not affect mapping. A gridcell in a grid with no tabindex 
specified is still a grid ... it just missing tabindex.
> Current proposal is that an element with role grid and 
aria-interactive=false would be mapped as a static table is mapped.

And that’s the contentious point in this discussion.

To make the matter even more confusing to typical software developers (the 
concern that Jon rightly raised), we also have aria-readonly and 
aria-disabled. Of these, aria-disabled is closest in function to 
aria-interactive=false, except, again, for the accessibility API mapping.

ARIA is already a complex specification. The direction which ARIA 1.1 is 
taking makes it even more dependent on subtle semantic distinctions that 
run the risk of leading to errors in the implementation of Web 
applications by well-intentioned ARIA non-experts. ARIA is “invisible 
metadata” as Charles McCathieNevile put it in a related context, and this 
exacerbates the problem.

To be clear, I think ARIA is much needed, very successful and that it 
makes a highly valuable practical contribution to the accessibility of the 
Web. However, the Web standardization community should think deeply and 
carefully about the risks of creating an increasingly complex 
specification primarily, if not solely, for purposes of accessibility, and 
should strive to find ways of making accessible application development 
possible without requiring authors to become specialists in the subtleties 
of accessibility API semantics. Perhaps the ARIA 2.0 discussion will be a 
suitable opportunity to rework the approach and to establish foundations 
for long-term extensibility. The integration of ARIA with Web components 
could also ease the burden on application authors.


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