- From: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:35:21 +0100
- To: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Cc: Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>, w3c-wai-pf@w3.org, public-html-a11y@w3.org, laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com, George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com>, david.bolter@gmail.com, jbrewer@w3.org, faulkner.steve@gmail.com, mike@w3.org
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis, Thu, 22 Mar 2012 06:52:15 +0000: > On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Leif Halvard Silli: > Why is "role" so special? Historical reasons: The PF did not create it. It was created as part of XHTML2 and thus lives in the XHTML namespace - and thus of course did not need any prefix in XHTML/HTML. But in SVG, they had to define it as a native attribute in order that authors should not need to do xhtml:role=''. But, from another angle, it also makes some sense that the one attribute that can affect what aria- prefixed attribute one is allowed to use, itself is not prefixed. >> * It learns from the antipattern set by @longdesc and @summary: >> Unique names for seldom used/seen attributes is no good. Better >> with an often seen prefix for a range of related attributes. > If we take the > view that user agents should be building UI on top of ARIA (like this > spec for @aria-describedat does), I don't think the ARIA attributes > are especially "related" to each other. Authors are higher priority than UA vendors, in our HTML design principles. > Why don't we just add new common document and > application semantics to HTML and recommend other markup languages > reuse HTML features rather than reinventing the wheel? It has its advantages that ARIA is *not* defined by the HTMLwg. >> @aria-DESCRIBEDat, is not completely void of benefits: >> >> * It indicates relationship to aria-DESCRIBEDby > > What relationship? The one where authors get utterly confused between > the two? ;) You are right: Those are two sides of the same coin. >> * The 'AT' part has hyperlink connotations - @. > > Twitter? Email? If "hyperlink connotations" are good, then surely > "url" or "href" have stronger connotations. I think, of your proposals, then aria-describedATURL, made some sense. But then, why not just say aria-describedBYurl ? Then both likeness and difference should be obvious? What you think about that? >> * Less technical than 'fooURL' > > How is that better? If it's better, how about "descriptionlink"? I am not member of the ARIA task force ... But I could certainly live with aria-descrptionlink, if my arguments in favor of current name or aria-describedbyURL etc are found week. >> and leads the thought towards the content that one points to > > I think that's an implicit aspect of any name that suggests a hyperlink… Why not just @aria-href then? >> and thus delegitimizes misuse. > > No, it encourages misuse since it does not make the data type clear. We could then say the same thing about aria-label, aria-labelledby, aria-describedby and about other attributes too. Btw, the @usemap is probably the attribute that most often get a idref as content rather than a URL ... So, yes, it is important to help authors. -- leif h silli
Received on Thursday, 22 March 2012 12:36:07 UTC