Re: <header> / <footer> & ARIA

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Aug 28, 2009, at 13:32, Steven Faulkner wrote:
> 
>>  the example for footer in the html 5 spec does not fit the definition 
>> of contentinfo in the ARIA spec.
> 
> It seems silly to have almost one-to-one mapping between the new HTML5 
> sectioning elements and ARIA landmarks but not quite one-to-one. Surely 
> the reasonable thing to do here is to adjust either HTML 5 or ARIA or 
> both so that the following mapping holds:
> 
> role=main == <main>

I'm not so keen on using the name <main>, and would prefer we used 
<content>.  <main> seems like it could only be used once per document, 
but if we introduce an element for this purpose, it should be able to be 
used within multiple sections of a page, just like header and footer can be.

> role=contentinfo == <footer>
> role=banner == <header>

Do you think it would be acceptable to make these mappings subject to 
where those elements are used, like I suggested earlier?  Namely, when 
they are the first such elements related to the body element?  (If we 
introduced <content> or whatever, then a similar condition could be 
attached to it's role=main mapping)

> role=navigation == <nav>

The spec already has that mapping.

> role=complementary == <aside>

The spec currently sets the note role as the default, but allows 
complementary or search to be used.  Should the default be changed?

> role=search == <form> with <input type=search> descendant

I agree that mapping should be added.

> Of course, to make informed adjustments, the rationales for both the 
> ARIA landmark set and the HTML5 element set need to be available for 
> examination.

I believe the original rationale for allowing one header per section was 
so that each section could have headings with subtitles, like this:

<article>
   <header>
     <h1>Article Title</h1>
     <h2>Subtitle</h2>
   </header>
   ...
</article>

The hgroup element now handles that particular use case, but the header 
element still has a useful purpose for containing additional article 
metadata, like the post date, by-line or the article's TOC if needed. 
Similarly, the footer element is useful for containing other types of 
metadata for an article, and it doesn't make sense to have distinct 
elements for this purpose when one they apply to the whole page, or just 
to one particular section.  So it makes sense for header and footer to 
be able to be used multiple times in a page.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Friday, 28 August 2009 12:01:45 UTC