RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

I am really not in favor of using this attribute to suppress the role of any implicit or explicit ARIA role, it is guaranteed to be misused like this.

Personally I think this attribute should be used in conjunction to the role, such as an object role being set via the role attribute, a name being set using the naming calculation, and the aria-roledescription string being added as the description of the object to supplement what is already set as the role and name.

The img role can be a special exception where if aria-roledescription is set to "", then it ignores the image role for ATs as we spoke of yesterday, I don't have a problem with that, but this would only be safe on images and not for all roles.

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

From: Matt King [mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2016 3:45 PM
To: 'White, Jason J' <jjwhite@ets.org>; 'ARIA Working Group' <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

Jason,

Matt wrote:
><img role="none" aria-roledescription="Gotch ya">
><table role="none" aria-roledescription="layout table">
>What would end up in the AX tree? What should a screen reader say?
Jason wrote:
>This is indicative of an author error.
>I think the tree should always reflect the value of the role attribute.

I agree that is probably reasonable, but our current spec language doesn't lean in that direction.

Given this language...
"User agents must not expose the aria-roledescription property if any of the following conditions exist.
1. The element to which aria-roledescription is applied does not have a valid WAI-ARIA role or does not have an implicit WAI-ARIA role semantic.
..."

Is role="none" a valid ARIA role?

And this authoring requirement:

"When using aria-roledescription, authors should also ensure that:

1.       The element to which aria-roledescription is applied has a valid WAI-ARIA role or has an implicit WAI-ARIA role semantic.
..."

Should authors think of role="none" as valid?

Matt

From: White, Jason J [mailto:jjwhite@ets.org]
Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2016 5:59 AM
To: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com<mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com>>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org<mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>
Subject: RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription



From: Matt King [mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2016 4:18 AM
Ambiguity #1: role none with a role description:
<img role="none" aria-roledescription="Gotch ya">
<table role="none" aria-roledescription="layout table">

What would end up in the AX tree? What should a screen reader say?
[Jason] This is indicative of an author error. I think the tree should always reflect the value of the role attribute.

Ambiguity 2:  role description on an element whose role is normally suppressed by screen readers:
<ul>
<li aria-roledescription="fruit">Apple</li>
<li aria-roledescription="fruit">Banana</li>
<li aria-roledescription="fruit">Orange </li>
</ul>

Should screen readers be expected to announce each list item as a fruit? Or, should the screen reader be able to use normal processing for the listitem role and not speak the role description?
[Jason] Given that the author specified aria-roledescription, most likely for a legitimate reason, it should be honored in this case. However, it shouldn't override the implications of the actual role as given in the role attribute, which is why role="none" should be respected in the content of the accessibility tree.


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