Fw: [NVDA] #2390: NVDA doesn't handle role=dialog with supporting ARIA attributes according to spec

I'm forwarding this in case any of you want to chime in. This is regarding 
the bug at
http://www.nvda-project.org/ticket/2390#comment:6

According to NVDA, widget control types such as role=dialog require not just 
an aria-label or aria-labelledby attribute, but also an aria-describedby 
attribute. I'm not able to locate where this exists in the user agent spec 
however, at
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles

The problem is that this breaks the accessibility of complex widgets (see 
below), and provides no recourse for preventing the announcement of 
irrelevant text.

This also causes a break in Assistive Technology support by introducing 
undocumented requirements that are specific only to one user agent, which 
undermines the whole purpose of W3C standardization.

----- Original Message ----- 
Subject: Re: [NVDA] #2390: NVDA doesn't handle role=dialog with supporting 
ARIA attributes according to spec


> #2390: NVDA doesn't handle role=dialog with supporting ARIA attributes 
> according
> to spec
> -------------------------------+------------------------
>        Reporter:  bgaraventa  |       Owner:
>            Type:  defect      |      Status:  new
>        Priority:  minor       |   Milestone:
>       Component:  Core        |     Version:  2012.2rc1
>      Resolution:              |    Keywords:  ARIA
> Operating system:  Windows XP  |  Blocked by:
>        Blocking:              |
> -------------------------------+------------------------
>
> Comment (by bgaraventa):
>
> Can you help me out? I've been reading the spec, but I can't find where it
> says that user agents must parse both an aria-describedby attribute and an
> aria-label/aria-labelledby at the same time. Can you point me to where it
> says this?
>
> This is actually a really big problem. Take the following scenario for
> example.
>
> 1. There is a surrounding Div tag with role=dialog and aria-label="Choose
> Region".
> 2. Within this dialog is a listbox control with all of the countries in
> the world, which is surrounded by a Div tag with role=presentation.
> 3. When the dialog opens, focus is set on the listbox control to highlight
> the currently selected country.
>
> Now, since NVDA ignores role=presentation (which should cause NVDA to
> ignore all of this content when parsing alternative text according to the
> user agent specification), and NVDA will announce all of the content
> regardless what the label is explicitly set to, every country will be
> announced in addition to the dialog label before it gets around to
> announcing the currently selected country as expected.
>
> Also, since aria-describedby isn't documented in the user agent spec
> alongside the requirement for aria-label and aria-labelledby, this means
> that the same ARIA widgets will work differently and with varying
> accessibility across different Assistive Technologies, which would
> undermine the whole purpose of standardization.
>
> -- 
> Ticket URL: <http://www.nvda-project.org/ticket/2390#comment:6>
> NVDA <http://www.nvda-project.org/>
> A free and open-source screen reader for Windows
>

Received on Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:20:23 UTC