- From: Sailesh Panchang <sailesh.panchang@deque.com>
- Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 11:05:51 -0400
- To: "White, Jason J" <jjwhite@ets.org>
- Cc: James Nurthen <james.nurthen@oracle.com>, Rich Schwerdtfeger <richschwer@gmail.com>, "public-aria@w3.org" <public-aria@w3.org>
"Useful behavior" is an usability matter ... not something that advances accessibility. Only JAWS users with advanced verbosity switched on miss aria-describedby text. That attribute can be used for any text that is PD and I cannot imagine a lay user being familiar with an application to such an extent that he will risk turning on verbosity so that this content is not read at all. It also unreasonably assumes that all users including every lay user knows exactly how a page is marked upincluding aria-describedby usage. There was mention of conflict of aria-describedby being used for form instructions and for error messaging. Well many forms simply do not have the need to use it as there may be no instructions etc. Surely there is no conflict at all in those cases, right? Of course I do not agree that there is any conflict at all even if there are instructions as stated earlier ... it is a matter of using the attribute properly in line with author's intent to meet SC 1.3.1 . Assuming the new property is introduced based on the "useful behavior" reasoning, it will still make Web content messy with some UA/At supporting it and some not and some developers using one attribute and some preferring aria-describedby. Also, even if all UA / AT implement it, it will not be wrong ARIA wise or WCAG2 wise to use describedby. So is the attribute really making a monumental advancement to accessibility? ... like aria-describedby did after its introduction and it gained support of UA/AT makers. So consider the risk and practicality and make your decision. Thanks and regards, Sailesh
Received on Wednesday, 27 July 2016 15:06:22 UTC