Re: FORMAL OBJECTION (was RE: Working Group Decision on ISSUE-204 aria-hidden)

On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 7:06 AM, Charles Pritchard <chuck@jumis.com> wrote:
> Hypertext links are a key issue in this discussion

Are they?

> Beyond the role of "link", ARIA 1.0 does not have the concept of following a
> hyperlink.

Not really true.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices/#kbd_layout_remaining_description

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-implementation/#mapping_additional_relations_reverse_relations

> Nor does it have the concept of recognizing HTML.

What do you mean?

> The concept behind longdesc, describedat, or in part, this idea of an
> extended tree are all somewhat similar to how iframe operates.

They are all links _of a sort_ yes.

> From the a11y side, I've heard and agree that the bulk of use cases we're
> discussing are areas where content should be presented to all users in some
> manner. That's quite different than the typical use of label/describedby;
> where the content has been made available to the user, and there are simply
> some issues in the DOM where elements did not map 1:1 to presentation.

I'm not sure that's the typical use of aria-label and
aria-describedby. (It sounds more like the typical use of some of the
ARIA roles.)

> The @longdesc semantic ought to exist, but it's not "hidden"; it's really
> more of an iframe, a popup, a footnote; a sub-section only made available
> when the user conveys an intent to get more depth or more information.

<details>

<a href>

> As I understand things, a11y-centric groups and members have proposed that
> @longdesc (HTML shorthand) and a new aria-describedat (ARIA next) be minted
> for the use cases brought up. In contrast, browser developers have asked
> that the meaning of "hidden" be relaxed so as to backport this feature into
> existing specs.

Not really. As I see it, the technical rationale here is ultimately
about what authors are likely to do, and thus what user agents are
going to need to do to give users access.

e.g. Will authors use @hidden to include or exclude text from
@aria-describedby? If the former, will they reserve @hidden for
flattenable content or use it for all usages of @aria-describedby,
including to point to long, structured, or interactive content?

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Received on Thursday, 16 August 2012 09:47:35 UTC