Issue 204 CP objections [Was: TF Teleconference Minutes for 26 April]

On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net> wrote:
>   janina: wonderful statement in there is that this can already happen and people are already doing to

That implies people are using @hidden to hide elements that they
intend to include in accessible names and descriptions, but I haven't
seen any documented examples of that usage in the wild. It would
strengthen both Jonas's and Cynthia's proposals to include such
documentation. Do you have any examples?

Jonas argues that authors who do not read the spec or use the
conformance checkers will use @hidden to hide elements expecting them
to contribute to accessible names and descriptions. This is plausible.
But it's also plausible that such authors might use @hidden with the
intent of hiding elements even from accessible names and descriptions.
For example, @aria-describedby might reference text that has the
@hidden attribute until it is relevant to the state of the
application, for example error text. Consider the following example

  <label for=username>Username:</label>
  <input id=username name=username aria-describedby=error>
  <div hidden id=error>Invalid username. Must be six or more
alphanumeric characters.</div>

If "hidden" means never ever render the content, then the error
message doesn't get included in accessible description calculation
until the error occurs and the "hidden" attribute removed.

If "hidden" means do not render the content except for ARIA name and
description calculation, then the error message is inappropriately
included regardless of the actual state of the application.

I've certainly seen lots of author confusion about whether display:
none should hide or show content to screen readers.

Maybe Jonas's scenario is more likely, I don't know. It would be good
to have some data around this.

>   JF: I asked Ben before to give us the actual quotes from the specs that he says we are contradicting
>
>   <janina> mike: See he's clearly saying "it violates the spec," but doesn't tell us where/how

I already sent an email responding to John's previous request for
detail that explains at length why I think the text in the CP
contradicts the HTML and ARIA specifications:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2012Apr/0166.html

Sorry for not including a link to that email in my email expressing my
objection.

Please let me know if it's still unclear, and how.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Received on Thursday, 26 April 2012 21:34:30 UTC