RE: Regarding selected cells within a static data table

I don't think there's any ARIA state/property with the required semantics. The definition of aria-selected is clear that it applies only to widgets; aria-disabled wouldn't apply to the unavailable cells, as this state is defined in terms of availability for interaction.

From: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com>
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 1:03 PM
To: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com>; James Nurthen <nurthen@adobe.com>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Regarding selected cells within a static data table

To be clear, I'm not asking how do you make this accessible, because I already know all of the hacks you can use such as using embedded images with alts, offscreen text, etc, but specifically, how do you do this using only ARIA?

Which ARIA attribute can be used to convey such simple information as this?



Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
Level Access, Inc.
Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com<mailto:Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com>
415.624.2709 (o)
www.LevelAccess.com<http://www.LevelAccess.com>

From: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com<mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com>>
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 9:58 AM
To: James Nurthen <nurthen@adobe.com<mailto:nurthen@adobe.com>>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org<mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>
Subject: RE: Regarding selected cells within a static data table

Hi,
This is not an interactive widget, but a static display conveyed by color alone.

One use case is this, you have a product comparison table that indicates a series of horizontal product features with in the column headers, and then you have a series of product models in each row where each row header in the left most column is a different product, and each cell has specific details of supported features but only some cells are selected as being available but others are not. These cells are not meant to be widgets, but they convey selected information that must be conveyed. The same use case applies when comparing health care plans, financial account plans, and many others.

So how do you convey the selected state of non-interactive cells like this?





Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
Level Access, Inc.
Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com<mailto:Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com>
415.624.2709 (o)
www.LevelAccess.com<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.LevelAccess.com&data=02%7C01%7Cjjwhite%40ets.org%7Cf616092180544c2e754a08d5a3bc122a%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C636594950510241618&sdata=DMCZKKLtOMX8fDqsdJfxoowWR%2Fmi%2FgloSZkZDpMVNeE%3D&reserved=0>

From: James Nurthen <nurthen@adobe.com<mailto:nurthen@adobe.com>>
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 9:18 AM
To: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com<mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com>>; ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org<mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: Regarding selected cells within a static data table

Can I clarify 1 point. Is this intended to allow a user to make a selection or is it only intended to indicate what is selected (as the result of another process)


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From: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com<mailto:bryan.garaventa@levelaccess.com>>
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 8:54:22 AM
To: ARIA Working Group
Subject: Regarding selected cells within a static data table

Hi,
This came up last week, and seems to indicate a missing area in what we have available in either aria-current or aria-selected, but I'm not sure which.

The scenario is a static data table where a series of situations are possible, (1) all cells in a column are highlighted as being selected, (2) all cells in a row are highlighted as being selected, or (3) any number of random cells within the data table are highlighted as being selected.

I was asked if aria-current could be used for this, but this does not actually fit because this only deals with one current item in a collection.

Similarly, the aria-selected attribute won't work because it is not supported on role="cell".

Also, it is invalid to add role="grid" to the construct just to expose aria-selected because this is a static data table and is not an interactive widget.

So, since nothing is available to deal with this, it seems that it should be either handled by aria-current or aria-selected, even though at present it does not.

Would it be agreeable to extend aria-selected to be supported on role="cell"?

Or, would adding a token to aria-current be more agreeable such as aria-current="selected"?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks,
Bryan



Bryan Garaventa
Accessibility Fellow
Level Access, Inc.
Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com<mailto:Bryan.Garaventa@LevelAccess.com>
415.624.2709 (o)
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=www.LevelAccess.com&data=02%7C01%7Cnurthen%40adobe.com%7Ce29f714872024d1af74a08d5a3b28bda%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636594909603664843&sdata=8%2FBqVyE3E%2FHJNptyujXXWDSXebhXlquWkPekPG9U2BM%3D&reserved=0

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