Re: ARIA and mainstream UI (was RE: ARIA 1.1: Deprecate @aria-grabbed and @aria-dropeffect)

James,
I wrote, "Surely ARIA MUST not make visual changes ... that is the prerogative
of  the content authors or user agents / AT". (John's views as per my
understanding are quite different)
My statement above is in line with:
"However, should a host language or browser decide to leverage ARIA
(which I think would be wise in some cases) to provide a better user
experience then that is where the UI should be decided. This is why
ARIA neither requires or forbids user agents from enhancing
native presentation and interaction behaviors".
And the statements, "Mainstream user agents might expose WAI-ARIA
navigational landmarks (for example, as a dialog box or through a
keyboard command) with ... User agents are encouraged to maximize
their usefulness to users, including users without disabilities." is
from the ARIA documentation, right?
So I am not saying anything different at all.

And "Aside from using WAI-ARIA markup to improve what is exposed to
accessibility APIs, user agents behave as they would natively", does
not preclude, "ARIA neither requires or forbids user agents from
enhancing native presentation and interaction."
There is no disconnect there.
WAI-ARIA markup by itself does not force user agents to change native
behavior but there is nothing that prevents user agents from
exploiting ARIA markup to enhance accessibility / user experience.
Best regards,
Sailesh Panchang


On 9/18/15, White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 18, 2015, at 19:49, James Craig <jcraig@apple.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Quoting the ARIA spec:
>> "Aside from using WAI-ARIA markup to improve what is exposed to
>> accessibility APIs, user agents behave as they would natively.”
>
> This accords with my understanding of how ARIA was originally conceived as a
> means of allowing “custom controls” to be made accessible by declaring them
> to the accessibility APIs, and of adding navigational landmarks that weren’t
> supported at the time by HTML. I am not persuaded that the scope of ARIA
> should be expanded beyond its role of providing information to accessibility
> APIs. If authors choose to use ARIA semantics to determine CSS properties,
> for instance, then that’s their decision - and a reasonable one to make in
> many cases. However, it doesn’t affect the user interface implemented by the
> user agent; it’s just a straightforward use of selectors and CSS styles. I
> don’t object to such opportunistic uses of ARIA by authors for additional
> such purposes, provided that the roles, states and properties are
> nevertheless used correctly and as specified.
>
> My preference has always been for work to be done, where possible, to
> enhance the features of host languages rather than to define
> accessibility-specific (including ARIA) attributes.
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> This e-mail and any files transmitted with it may contain privileged or
> confidential information. It is solely for use by the individual for whom it
> is intended, even if addressed incorrectly. If you received this e-mail in
> error, please notify the sender; do not disclose, copy, distribute, or take
> any action in reliance on the contents of this information; and delete it
> from your system. Any other use of this e-mail is prohibited.
>
>
> Thank you for your compliance.
>
> ________________________________
>

Received on Saturday, 19 September 2015 17:48:26 UTC