Re: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion

Thanks for the feedback Suzanne. Whether or not “none” is the best replacement is irrelevant. The confusion is not around images. It it around the use of role="presentation" on other elements. For example:

The following marking:
<h4 role="presentation">Foo</h4>

is effectively the same as:
<div>Foo</div>

But many authors are using it to mean this:
<h4 aria-hidden="true">Foo</h4>

And that’s a major problem I hope we can resolve, regardless of the solution.


FWIW though, the example you mentioned:
> <img src="character.png" alt="A blue monster with 57 green frog eyes and a
> fluffy purple tail" role="presentation">


Is an authoring error, as no accessibility information (including a label such as @alt) should be provided on elements with role="presentation" according to the specification:

Quoting: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/complete#presentation
Authors SHOULD NOT provide meaningful alternative text (for example, use alt="" in HTML4) when the presentation role is applied to an image.


Cheers,
James


On Jan 27, 2014, at 1:51 PM, Suzanne Taylor <suzanne.taylor@pearson.com> wrote:

> I think accessibility specialists who are looking to speak openly and
> honestly about their understanding when an attribute is brand new do not
> really represent how the average web developer will look at things.
> 
> Role="none" while perhaps clearer to someone who understands accessibility
> APIs is less descriptive and less useful. Consider:
> 
> <img src="character.png" alt="A blue monster with 57 green frog eyes and a
> fluffy purple tail" role="presentation">
> 
> Role is presentation. Those who don't want to read this type of
> description can have that setting turned off. Those who like these
> descriptions can have "read presentation images" turned on.
> 
> <img src="rock.png" alt="" role="presentation"> would be silent even with
> that setting turned on.
> 
> <img src="rock.png" role="none"> is not accurate. It's not nothing. It's
> not <span src="rock.png">. It's an image. AT in the future might want to
> know that - for transformation to haptic, sonified and/or 3-D
> "decorations".
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Craig [mailto:jcraig@apple.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 27, 2014 4:14 PM
> To: w3c-wai-pf@w3.org WAI-PFWG; WAI XTech; Kelly.Ford@microsoft.com;
> Richard Schwerdtfeger; Derek Featherstone; Steve Faulkner
> Subject: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened PFWG-ISSUE-348:
> Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1)
> role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion
> 
> To PFWG (and copying the referenced individuals). Also copying XTECH since
> the ARIA topics are now moving to Bugzilla and open issue tracking.
> 
> In the ARIA F2F meeting last week, we decided to reopen the issue of
> renaming the term "presentation" as a role. the name is too long, but more
> importantly, it's way too easily confused with aria-hidden.
> 
> This topic to "shorten the name 'presentation'" was raised this time by
> Rich, although he seemed to have forgotten the contentious history of the
> previous debate. Therefore I'd like to summarize the previous discussion
> and point out that I think this issue was previously handled poorly by the
> PFWG ARIA Task Force. Although I still agree with changing the name (I
> suggested role="none"), the work involved will be much, much more
> difficult now that ARIA 1.0 is done, because we have to deprecate it
> rather than remove it, and this pushes much of the responsibility onto
> authors. We should have resolved this formal comment for ARIA 1.0 when it
> was originally raised by Kelly Ford.
> 
> PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1)
> role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/track/issues/348
> 
> This topic was originally raised by a WG member, Microsoft Member
> Representative, Kelly Ford.
> 
> Quoting Kelly from
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/comments/details?comment_id=166
>> We believe that role=presentation is problematic, beginning with the
> word "presentation", continuing on to possible misinterpretation of what
> should be presentation, and possible mis-use of role=presentation by
> authors who want to avoid extra effort, thereby hiding real information
> from AT who respect that role.
> End quote.
> 
> Much evidence was presented to support this argument, including the fact
> that even accessibility *experts* (including Derek Featherstone and Steve
> Faulkner) thought it was interchangeable with aria-hidden, specifically
> because of the name "presentation":
> 
> Quoting Derek from
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/free-aria/c6aw0zwUAnM
>> This attribute should work on any node, though, correct? I was under the
> impression that this simply wasn't for images, but for any node that
> "should not be exposed" to AT via whatever means.
> 
> End quote.
> 
> And Steve Faulkner's reply from the same thread:
>> thats my understanding.
> End quote.
> 
> Ultimately the issue was dismissed (via majority consensus, but with
> strong objections) because it would require a few user agents to update a
> single token value, which is possibly one of the easiest changes in UA
> programming, period.
> 
> Quoting Rich from
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-wai-pf/2009JulSep/0089.html
>> Well I am [[saying that changing the name is wrong]]. There are tons of
> implementations out there using role="presentation". We have a lot better
> things to do than change the name of a role. That requires us to go out
> and fix browser, web content, and ATs all over the place for a name change
> with no significant functional value add. I think we should be spending
> our resources on fixing bigger problems like canvas as opposed to things
> like that.
> End quote.
> 
> Quoting myself from the reply:
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-wai-pf/2009JulSep/0092.html
>> I think that's the wrong justification for defending against a change.
> Our first responsibility is to get ARIA 1.0 right. It won't matter that it
> works when done according to spec if authors are confused enough to do it
> the wrong way. This is a recurring confusion from authors and commenters
> about what 'presentation' means. The comment by Kelly Ford [1] is well
> justified and mentions a problem that we desperately want to avoid, that
> ".developers are going to get confused from the outset and we'll be stuck
> with bad implementations from the outset."
>> 
>> Worse yet, read the free-aria thread referenced in the comment. Even
> accessibility experts like Derek Featherstone and Steve Faulkner are/were
> confused at the terminology and usage. I have to admit a similar confusion
> when I first read that part of the draft.
> End quote.
> 
> We're now seeing this as a major authoring problem. Many of us have
> presentation slides attempting to clarify the difference between
> role="presentation" and aria-hidden="true" because it's misused so
> frequently. This issue would have been much easier to fix in 1.0. We're
> now going to have to recommend authors do something like role="none
> presentation" for years to be backwards-compatible with "ARIA 1.0
> Compliant" implementations.
> 
> Please let this be a lesson to every W3C contributor that existing
> implementations (or lack thereof) of any *pre-1.0* specification should
> never be cause for blocking improvements to the language.
> 
> Thanks,
> James Craig