- From: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
- Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:01:17 +0200
- To: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Cc: HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis, Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:33:40 +0100: > 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 > 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. To make the above not work, one must change ARIA so that aria-describedBY="section-where-aria-hidden-is-set-to-true" does not work. One could of course try to help by flagging it as an error to make aria-describedby point to @hidden and @aria-hidden="true" sections. However, ARIA *also* says that one MUST do <p style="display:none" aria-hidden="true">Hidden text.</p> And thus, that one must not simply do <p style="display:none">Hidden text.</p> And so I guess you see the problem: To forbid to point hidden sections, could cause authors to not use aria-hidden="true". > I've certainly seen lots of author confusion about whether display: > none should hide or show content to screen readers. Which underlines the problem I stated above. > 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 I read. And, whether pointing with a href link to a hidden section results in unpredictable behavior or predictably leads to a unexpected behavior, is not _that_ important. However, I get what you mean. I don't disagree in fixing it. That said, the use of @hidden does lead to some undpredictability too: The element could be made visible, via CSS, despite the @hidden attribute. What happens then? When I read the rest of that letter, the I came to think that it perhaps should be forbidden to do aria-describedby=hidden-anchor-element. -- Leif H Silli
Received on Friday, 27 April 2012 01:01:51 UTC