[Bug 11557] Authors should not be allowed to specify roles on elements that they already have by default. It's redundant and encourages authors to add roles in cargo-cult fashion on the theory that this will improve their accessibility. See IRC for proof: http://kr

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=11557

steve faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> changed:

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--- Comment #5 from steve faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> 2010-12-15 19:06:26 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #3)
> This isn't arbitrary XML, though.  It's one of the most widely-used document
> formats in the world.  If an AT doesn't understand HTML well enough to
> automatically know that an <option> in a <select> is a role=option, then it's
> useless for almost the entirety of the web, as very few sites use any ARIA at
> all, and those that do usually only use a smattering for actual accessibility
> "fix up", not accessibility redundancy.
> 
> I think the use-case of sites that want to cater to fundamentally broken and
> useless ATs by providing redundant information is outweighed by the economic
> cost of the storage/bandwidth eaten by the added markup and additional time
> spent adding that markup (if you're being thorough, the annotations are *very*
> pervasive even on an average webpage) by webdevs who are just trying to be good
> web citizens and don't realize that it's unnecessary in any half-useful AT.

if browsers expose correct roles via accessibility APIs there should be no
issue for AT. which is the case for all AT I know of.  Some newer HTML5
controls such as input type=number" are implemented incorrectly, in chrome (for
example) the control is visually a spinbutton but exposed as textbox in such
cases use of an aria role can improve the AT users understanding of a control.

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Received on Wednesday, 15 December 2010 19:06:28 UTC