Re: UAAG, error handling and HTML5

Hi Henny,

In the example, the "required" fields are outlined in red because that's 
what the CSS says to do...

But, once HTML5 becomes a recommendation (and if "required" is a 
feature) I would expect browsers to do native parsing of the attribute 
resulting in some default highlighting behaviour AND in the case of 
accessible user agents conveying the semantic fact ("required") in a 
non-visual way as well.

Cheers,
Jan





Henny Swan wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Forgive me as I'm still wading through UAAG and getting up to speed with 
> the spec, as such this may be a silly question with an obvious answer 
> but any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Currently HTML5 is working to put in better error handling support in 
> forms so validation can be handled by the HTML and the browser. An 
> example can be found at 
> http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/tests/html5-forms-demo.html. Currently, if 
> you make a mistake the offending form field in question is flagged by a 
> red outline which only goes so far as in aiding accessibility as 
> non-sighted users, colour blind users, people browsing with colours 
> switched off and so on will not get the information.
> 
> So my question is, how far is the user agent responsible for flagging 
> errors? WCAG 2.0 has a number of Success Criteria that deal with error 
> handling [1] so I'm curious to know where the line is drawn in terms of 
> author responsibility (WCAG) and user agent responsibility (UAAG) when 
> HTML5 is thrown into the mix. Should the browser and HTML5 support 
> provision of accessible warnings or is it down to the page author?
> 
> Cheers, Henny
> 
> 
> [1]  http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/minimize-error.html
> 

-- 
Jan Richards, M.Sc.
User Interface Design Lead
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC)
Faculty of Information (i-school)
University of Toronto

   Email: jan.richards@utoronto.ca
   Web:   http://jan.atrc.utoronto.ca
   Phone: 416-946-7060
   Fax:   416-971-2896

Received on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 18:13:22 UTC