RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

Look at the complete roledescription text and the examples. The attachment
button example makes it clear that the author may want to include the word
button in the roledescription. On the other hand, consider the example I
described in the test scenario . in that case you would not want to include
the role name in the role description. A property like this is useless if it
doesn't give authors a reasonable degree of freem and responsibility.

 

It is possible we could make the text even more clear so people who
associate the same connotations with "description" that you associate with
it are not confused.

 

Clear spec text combined with robust authoring guidance, something we didn't
have with ARIA 1.0,  should allow the ARIA working group to introduce new
features without the same concerns of wide spread abuse and
misinterpretations that were associated with several features of ARIA 1.0.

 

At some point, screen reader developers will need to stop second guessing
every author out there or even perfectly coded web pages will suck for their
users. I think there are much better ways for screen readers to help their
users cope with pages where authors messed up . they shouldn't automatically
degrade good pages for the sake of the few bad ones.

 

I think this is quite different from user agent treatment of null values. As
you know, it is extremely common, and reasonable given the way most other
ARIA properties are processed, for authors to assume that null property
values do not have side effects.

 

Matt

 

From: Bryan Garaventa [mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 10:36 PM
To: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>; 'White, Jason J' <jjwhite@ets.org>;
'ARIA Working Group' <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

 

Yes, when I say suppress, I'm referring to what you then describe as the
following:

 

"In a situation like this, it would be much, much nicer if words like
slider, listbox, grid, or application  were never spoken automatically. Of
course, the actual roles could still be available via a "where am I" or
context help  type of command."

 

This is actually the same behavior that you are opposed to with regard to
using aria-roledescription="" to suppress the role of image, but in this
case you are suppressing the role of other interactive widget roles and
replacing it with the string in aria-roledescription instead. Also, Rich
already said during the meeting that Freedom Scientific has already refused
to do this, saying that this would be too confusing for their users if no
underlying role was conveyed, so if this is the intent of the spec text it
is already going to be ignored.

 

Also I disagree that the spec text is already clear about this, reading as
follows:

 

"The aria-roledescription property gives authors the ability to override how
assistive technologies localize and express the name of a role. Thus,
inappropriately using aria-roledescription may inhibit users' ability to
understand or interact with an element. Authors SHOULD limit use of
aria-roledescription to clarifying the purpose of non-interactive container
roles like group or region or to providing a more specific description of a
widget."

 

So the first part of this refers to the name of a role, but the end refers
to the description of a role. The meaning between a role name and a role
description is actually quite different.

 

E.G I interpret the name of a role as defining it's type, analygous to its
mapping, such as button, checkbox, radio, etc. A description however
describes what a role does, "Press Enter or Space to activate", "Press Left
or Right to navigate", "Press Enter to submit", etc.

 

How too is this supposed to work if applied to structural elements like
<table>, <dl>, <ul>, <ol>, etc., where all of these include semantic child
element roles that need to remain exposed regardless? E.G How will a user
know what a table is if the word 'table' as it's primary role is not
announced, no matter what the accessibility tree contains.

 

Earlier I think you or somebody else mentioned that this isn't supposed to
happen like this, however that is exactly what the spec text says:

 

"The aria-roledescription property gives authors the ability to override how
assistive technologies localize and express the name of a role."

 

This would make it necessary for implementors in the table example to have
to use the word "table" within the aria-roledescription attribute simply to
comply with the spec and convey that this is a table, causing double
repetition within ATs like screen readers that refuse to ignore the role and
announce both the role and the aria-roledescription attribute string.

 

I understand the use case as you outlined it, however the risk is too great
to make this type of thing so widely implementable that it can screw up
everything else.

 

 

 

Bryan Garaventa

Accessibility Fellow

SSB BART Group, Inc.

bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com <mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com> 

415.624.2709 (o)

www.SSBBartGroup.com <http://www.SSBBartGroup.com> 

 

From: Matt King [mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2016 4:49 PM
To: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com
<mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com> >; 'White, Jason J'
<jjwhite@ets.org <mailto:jjwhite@ets.org> >; 'ARIA Working Group'
<public-aria@w3.org <mailto:public-aria@w3.org> >
Subject: RE: Significant ambiguities in aria-roledescription

 

Bryan, when you say suppress, are you talking only about announcement?

 

The spec is very clear that roledescription is not the role; it is an
author-supplied, localized name for the role. It is only that. The role of
the element is not changed in the accessibility tree and all role based
functionality provided by assistive technologies should be retained.

 

The spec language and examples are also reasonably clear that
roledescription is the localized name of the role of the element so it would
be repetitive for a screen reader to automatically voice both its own
localized version of the role name in addition to the author supplied role
description. It is useful to think of this feature of the property in the
context of the kinds of examples Mark described at TPAC.

 

Imagine the following instructions in a test:

 

"use the up and down arrow keys to highlight a slice of the pie and then
press right arrow to increase the size or left arrow to decrease the size of
the highlighted slice. When a slice is the size you desire, you can freeze
its size by pressing space. Portion the pie to represent blab la bla "

 

To get the screen reader to drop into application mode, the pie could be a
listbox, single column grid, or application element. The slices could be
horizontal sliders that toggle their read only state with the spacebar. 

 

In a situation like this, it would be much, much nicer if words like slider,
listbox, grid, or application  were never spoken automatically. Of course,
the actual roles could still be available via a "where am I" or context help
type of command.

 

With the strong wording we have in the spec and good authoring guidance, I
think we can fend off overuse and just plain idiocy to a sufficiently
reasonable extent. I have been convinced there are important use cases for
this property. And, just like aria-label and aria-labelledby, it requires
care in its use or users will be harmed.

 

Matt

 

From: Bryan Garaventa [mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 3:55 PM
To: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com <mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com> >;
'White, Jason J' <jjwhite@ets.org <mailto:jjwhite@ets.org> >; 'ARIA Working
Group' <public-aria@w3.org <mailto:public-aria@w3.org> >
Subject: 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 <mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com> 

415.624.2709 (o)

www.SSBBartGroup.com <http://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 <mailto:jjwhite@ets.org> >; 'ARIA
Working Group' <public-aria@w3.org <mailto: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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