Re: warning category for techniques / failures.

Hello All,
"Techniques misapplied" is a more pressing category that needs to be introduced.
Misapplication or incorrect / incomplete application of a technique  results in content that is meant to be more accessible (because efforts have been spent in making it accessible) less so.
The underlying principle for "Techniques misapplied"  is sort of stated in S508 1194.21 (d) that states: 
"Applications shall not disrupt or disable activated features of other products that are identified as accessibility features,..." 

Consider the following examples. These  break the ability of users to use a feature of AT. Or, users cannot use a feature to reliably navigate or operate or understand content. It is likely some other technique may have been employed to pass an SC but the presence of"techniques misapplied" introduces accessibility problems for users.
Examples:
1. Using title attribute instead of explicit label association for form control ... or doing both!
2. Setting a title attribute on a link that duplicates link text
3. Including an element's role in its name.
e.g. alt="Apply button" on an INPUT type=image button  is read as "Apply button button" by screen readers
4. Image link and text link for a product: side by side
5. Setting identical table caption and summary attribute on a data table
6. Incomplete use of ARIA landmarks: failing to mark main content and only using one or two landmarks like banner, contentinfo, search
7. Using different heading tags across site at start of main content
(see  Technique H42 examples : proper use of headings)
8. Inconsistency: target of skip to content link and placement of main landmark

This was covered at CSUN:
http://www.mindoversight.com/csun/2016/Overview.html
Thanks,
Sailesh Panchang

--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 5/4/16, josh@interaccess.ie <josh@interaccess.ie> wrote:

 Subject: Re: warning category for techniques / failures.
 To: "Alastair Campbell" <acampbell@nomensa.com>, "Gregg Vanderheiden" <gregg@raisingthefloor.org>
 Cc: "GLWAI Guidelines WG org" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, "IG - WAI Interest Group List list" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
 Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2016, 5:24 AM
 
 
 
 ------ Original Message ------
 From: "Alastair Campbell" <acampbell@nomensa.com>
 [...]
 >
 >I’m sure some of the testers on the list
 could come up with many 
 >examples.
 I’ll do a starter for 10 to give some examples:
 >
 >- Data table doesn’t
 have a visible caption.
 >- No visible
 label for a form field.
 >- Related fields
 are not grouped with a fields & legend
 >- Main heading is not an H1
 >- Submit button isn’t at the bottom of
 the form.
 >- Icon doesn’t have
 supporting text.
 >- Use of 'click
 here' / 'read more’.
 
 Thanks for those Alastair - the a11y auditor in
 me likes these. I'm also 
 warming more
 to a 'softer' set of techniques that effectively
 act as a heads up. In practice this could be
 very useful and bride a gap 
 between
 'Success' and 'Failure'. This could be
 useful from
 a teaching perspective also.
 
 Thanks
 
 Josh
 
 >
 >None of these are definitely failures, but
 the presence of them on a 
 >page rings
 warning bells!
 >Many automated tools have
 a ‘warning’ category for things they pick up 
 >but cannot be sure are failures.
 >
 >Obviously we could
 come up with millions of these, so it should be 
 >‘common’ ones rather than all. We could
 even ask a testing tool person 
 >to see
 if they have any aggregate stats on these.
 >
 >Kind regards,
 >
 >-Alastair
 >
 >

Received on Wednesday, 4 May 2016 13:27:46 UTC