RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

To clarify, the attribute name doesn't help.

Aria-roledescription implies that this is analogous to a description that would be announced in addition to the role, such as the difference between aria-label versus aria-labelledby. Aria-roledescription versus aria-describedby are way too close in terminology for this level of difference.

Also, the word description is not the same as replacement, E.G aria-roledescription versus aria-rolereplacement mean very different things.

And if custom roles are going to be allowed, how will anybody prevent the following from breaking accessibility through misleading feedback?

<p aria-roledescription="button">
My name is Ralph. Bark. Bark.
</p>

Developers are going to start using this to provide roles on things based on what they look like, not what they are actually meant to do.

This is going to lead to inaccessible software if allowed like this.





Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
SSB BART Group, Inc.
bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com
415.624.2709 (o)
www.SSBBartGroup.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Garaventa [mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 8:40 AM
To: tink@tink.uk; Schnabel, Stefan <stefan.schnabel@sap.com>; Richard Schwerdtfeger <richschwer@gmail.com>; White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org>
Cc: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

I have to agree, that's going to be misused everywhere.


Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
SSB BART Group, Inc.
bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com
415.624.2709 (o)
www.SSBBartGroup.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Léonie Watson [mailto:tink@tink.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 8:32 AM
To: Schnabel, Stefan <stefan.schnabel@sap.com>; Richard Schwerdtfeger <richschwer@gmail.com>; White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org>
Cc: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

On 07/07/2016 16:01, Schnabel, Stefan wrote:
> Hi Leonie,
>
>>>> The spec recommends using the attribute only on non-interactive containers ...
>
> see http://w3c.github.io/aria/aria/aria.html#aria-roledescription

>
> No word about only structural roles in latest draft.


The warning is in the note included after the definition. Here's the text:

"Users of
assistive technologies
  learn interaction patterns based on localized role descriptions such as "button" or "slider." When authors change the role description, users may no longer understand the purpose of the control or how to interact with it. Thus custom role descriptions are only recommended for use on non-interactive container roles like group
  or
region
  or to provide a more specific description of a widget."


Léonie.


--
@LeonieWatson tink.uk Carpe diem

Received on Thursday, 7 July 2016 15:55:17 UTC