RE: Frame Title and Screenreader Access

My reasoning:

It is useeful to the people who are now living with systems that speak the
name (lynx for example), and there needs to be a name anyway.

It is useful to have a better title - that's the thing that is intended to be
read to a human (name is for targetting content into one frame or another).

The AT should be speaking the title. The Web developer needs to add a name,
and should add a title thatmay be the same (navigation) or may be more useful
if they are planning on being helpful. The authoring tool should make this
more or less painless anyway. The idea that the AT should let you choose is
solely based on the fact that when authors and their tools are not up to
scratch it is helpful to be able to find out whatever else is available. It's
not the sort of choice u would ever make in a well-constructed web - a
user should decide to use it when they get incomprehensible gibberish, or
nothing at all, from the standard access paths.

Cheers

Charles

On Sun, 18 Feb 2001, Jim Thatcher wrote:

  Charles,

  When you say <quote> it is  useful to have a name attribute that is at least
  meaningful, and a title attribute that takes advantage of  the fact that you
  can have several words in it. <end quote> I think it is important to ask
  "useful to whom." It isn't useful to the web developer to have to add two
  attributes. It isn't useful to the assistive technology developer because
  they are faced with the decision of which to speak. Speaking both is
  redundant and "noisy." So add a user choice in the AT! There are far too
  many switches, and even with the switch, when is a user to decide to choose
  one over the other?

  It is so much better for all when there is one clear choice better for the
  web developer, AT developer and user.

  Jim
  jim@jimthatcher.com
  Accessibility Consulting
  http://jimthatcher.com
  512-306-0931

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org]
  Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 8:30 PM
  To: jim@jimthatcher.com
  Cc: Laurie Harrison; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
  Subject: RE: Frame Title and Screenreader Access


  I essentially agree with Jim's recommendation, but it is  useful to have a
  name attribute that is at least meaningful, and a title attribute that takes
  advantage of  the fact that you can have several words in it. (The key word
  should of course be the same). In addition you should use the noframes
  element, as per the HTML specification, to provide navigation links into
  your
  content for browsers which do not render each frame.

  I will take an action item to propose an update to the techniques for WCAG.

  Further comments below

  On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Jim Thatcher wrote:

    Laurie,

    (1) Here's WCAG: 12.1 Title each frame to facilitate frame identification
    and navigation. [Priority 1] For example, in HTML use the "title"
  attribute
    on FRAME elements.

  CMN Here's where WCAG points for techniques to do this:
  http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#frame-names (Please note that every
  checkpoint in WCAG 1.0 has a link to techniques. In most cases there is
  further useful information both at the point and  often just around it).
  Essentially the examle given here uses title on the frame element in the
  frameset. As Jim points out below, that probably isn't enough to work well
  everywhere.

  --Charles McCN
  JT  continued
    (2) Section 508 used the WCAG wording without the example.

    Here is my analysis of how well assistive technology is listening to the
    these recommendations.

    (1) Lynx, which is not assistive technology, really, uses the name
    attributes on the frame elements for its list of frames.

    (2) HomePage Reader v2.5 used the title attribute on the frame element if
  it
    was present but reverted to the title element of the actual frame page if
    there was no title attribute. I know of no other AT that uses/used the
  title
    attribute.

    (3) Jaws uses the name attribute of the frame element for its list of
    frames, and announces both the name attribute and the title element as it
    reads the frame.

    (4) Window-Eyes only uses only the title element. I don't know if
    Window-Eyes provides a list of frames.

    (5) HPR v3.0 uses the title element of each frame page in its list of
    frames; it uses neither the name nor the title attribute. (This is a bug,
  in
    my opinion!)

    The only conclusion I can make is to recommend to web authors is provide
    both title and name attributes on the frame elements (make them the same)
    and quality titles on their frame pages. In other words do all three and
    your bases will be covered. Of course the name and title attributes
  describe
    the purpose of the frame, like "main content" or "local navigation."



-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Received on Sunday, 18 February 2001 22:01:47 UTC