Re: Drop longdesc, get aria-describedat?

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 6:04 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> Janina Sajka, Wed, 7 Mar 2012 16:47:51 +0000:
>> Leif Halvard Silli writes:
>
>>> Question: Is there a chance that "we could do" @aria-describedat *now*?
>>> I am convinced that the chances for a amicable solution would increase
>>> greatly if one could move from talk to action with regard to
>>> @aria-describedat.
>>
>> You're asking the core question, imho. I wish we could simply say "yes"
>> and be done with it,
>
>> Unfortunately, ARIA-DescribedAt doesn't exist anywhere except on our "To
>> Do" list.
>
> So, the process is the reason we can't say 'use @aria-describedat' ...

To me that also sounds like a non-argument or simply an excuse for not
doing the right thing.

If W3C's standardisation process stands in the way of making better
standards, then there is obviously something wrong here.

This is ultimately the reason why the WHATWG is developing "living
standards", i.e. standards that continue to get improved.

If we stop at a set feature list and arbitrarily argue that a spec is
"finished" and are inflexible when new needs come up to actually react
to market needs, we have failed as a standards organisation. Let's not
repeat that error and instead let's find a way.

Ultimately, what is written in the spec isn't that useful anyway,
because what counts is implementations, so if browsers start
implementing a feature such as @aria-describeat, we're better off as a
accessibility community independent of whether that feature is written
down in a current ARIA specification or in fact anywhere else.

So, if we really don't want to touch the ARIA spec as it currently
stands, I would suggest a way out would be to create a Community Group
that starts discussing changes / additions to the ARIA spec and writes
up some documents. Things that come to mind here are
@aria-describedat, or the finer details of @aria-hidden. I'm sure we
can thing of other things, too.

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Wednesday, 7 March 2012 19:50:30 UTC