[Bug 18385] Programmatic association of a page element to a 'description' text in a different uri

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=18385

--- Comment #27 from Léonie Watson <lwatson@paciellogroup.com> ---
(In reply to Charles McCathieNevile from comment #26)
> (In reply to Léonie Watson from comment #25)
> > 4. Form control needs additional explanation.
> > 
> > If a form control requires additional explanation, sending someone to an
> > external resource is not good UX. Form state is often temporary (until the
> > form is submitted), so sending someone to an external resource would either
> > require that the form state be made persistent, that a new browser
> > window/tab was opened, or that a dialogue/lightbox widget was used. Keeping
> > such additional information in-line using aria-describedby is a better (and
> > more universal) option.
> 
> aria-describeBy has a bunch of problems. First, it is theoretically only
> expected to be available to people using assistive technologies, and in
> practice only for those using screen readers, which is a pretty long way
> from being universal. This is one of the major problems with ARIA in general.

It is a problem for ARIA in general, yes. In this case , the common pattern is
to use ARIA to duplicate a relationship that is already available to everyone
else though.

Conventional form design places additional hint information close to the field
it relates to, establishing a visual relationship between the two. In this
instance ARIA makes that association available to screen reader users in
addition to everyone else, rather than to the exclusion of everyone else.

> 
> Second, aria-describedBy only allows a text string - no rich content
> whatsoever - which further reduces its value.

Only to the extent that a screen reader will reduce structured content to a
string when the element it describes receives focus. But the descriptive
content itself can be structured 

The drawback is that @aria-describedby doesn't establish a navigable
association between the element and its description. The proposed
@aria-describedat attribute would provide that navigable relationship I
believe.

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Received on Wednesday, 17 June 2015 22:37:25 UTC