RE: [REVIEW REQUESTED] Rewrite of the text role

<img src=”rainbow-co-logo.gif” alt=”rainbow”> has been used forever to handle raster-based logotypes. Wouldn’t role=image create the same user experience?

From: Amelia Bellamy-Royds [mailto:amelia.bellamy.royds@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 12:52 PM
To: Cynthia Shelly <cyns@microsoft.com>
Cc: Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [REVIEW REQUESTED] Rewrite of the text role

One more comment on the name:

If the argument for keeping this feature in ARIA 1.1 is that it is already in use in the wild, doesn't changing the name break existing sites & implementations?  Should "text" at least be added back in as a deprecated synonym for the new role?

On the role itself:

I do think this role is useful.  Non-text elements representing text logos & calligraphy is a common use case in SVG, but it is not SVG-specific.  As much as we encourage people to use real text content for text, there are many types of graphical text for which that isn't an option.  If it hadn't already been in ARIA 1.1, I would probably have recommended a graphics-text role for the ARIA Graphics module.

The img role is functional but not perfect.  "Image: rainbow" is very different from "Text: rainbow"; the first I would assume to be an image of a rainbow, not an image of the word "rainbow".  Similarly, the image role forces you to either lose all document structure (putting the entire alt text on a single element with the img role) or create a monstrosity like "Image: 50%. Image: Off. Image: Sale. Image: Now though Sunday."

However, I recognize that it is also confusing, as far as functionality, for screen reader users to not be able to tell the difference between real text and text-as-graphic. Maybe this could be best addressed by ATs being slightly less transparent about the object in verbose or spell-out mode, announcing elements as "graphical text" or "decorative text", while still reading it as plain text in less verbose modes.

On 28 June 2016 at 13:32, Cynthia Shelly <cyns@microsoft.com<mailto:cyns@microsoft.com>> wrote:
I still don’t understand the use case for this role. What are we trying to accomplish with this role?
Is it for SVG? If so, wouldn’t role=image work?

From: Amelia Bellamy-Royds [mailto:amelia.bellamy.royds@gmail.com<mailto:amelia.bellamy.royds@gmail.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 12:15 PM
To: Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com<mailto:jdiggs@igalia.com>>
Cc: ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org<mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: [REVIEW REQUESTED] Rewrite of the text role

+1 to the description and examples. Very clear about the purpose, impact, and restrictions on the role.

I'm less certain about the name change.  "static" sounds to me like a disabled widget.  I worry that many authors won't understand it or think to use it for font icons, images, and SVG paths that directly represent text.

It's more verbose, but is statictext or plaintext an option?

~Amelia

On 28 June 2016 at 12:38, Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com<mailto:jdiggs@igalia.com>> wrote:
Hi all.

tl;dr: Please read
https://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/action-2086/aria/aria.html#static

How that draft came to be is detailed below.

In response to the concerns raised by Apple regarding the removal of the
text role, and their request that we restore it for 1.1, I sent an
extremely long (5 pages in print) and very ATK-specific email to James
in which I went through all of the text role examples, and added some
variants of my own, in order to figure out just what was expected for my
platform. Because, like I said to James, if I have no clue how to
*properly* implement support for this role on my own platform, we have a
problem.

This was very late on Friday evening. Throughout the weekend, James and
I emailed back and forth, with the emails getting even longer and even
more in-the-weedsy, until finally we realized what the problem was. The
problem was that my understanding of the text role was completely and
utterly different from what this role is meant to be. For the purposes
of documentation, and perhaps help others reach the "AHA!" moment I did,
here is the relevant bit I sent to James in which I finally "got it.":

[clip]