Re: ARIA roles added to the a element should be conforming in HTML5.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Richard Schwerdtfeger
<schwer@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
> Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist
>
> public-html-request@w3.org wrote on 10/21/2009 06:23:20 PM:
>
>> "John Foliot" <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
>> Sent by: public-html-request@w3.org
>>
>> 10/21/2009 06:23 PM
>>
>> To
>>
>> "'HTMLWG WG'" <public-html@w3.org>
>>
>> cc
>>
>> "'W3C WAI-XTECH'" <wai-xtech@w3.org>
>>
>> Subject
>>
>> RE: ARIA roles added to the a element should be conforming in HTML5.
>>
>> Thoughts on this thread:
>>
>> Thomas Broyer wrote:
>> >
>> > The fact that the developer can technically turn an <a> into a button
>> > isn't a justification for making it conforming. If it's not a link but
>> > a button, you should use <button> or <span role=button>.
>> >
>>
>> The fact that we are seeing this in the wild, and that non-conformant
>> pages
>> still render in all browsers (and will continue to do so) is justification
>> enough that ARIA added here should not 'add' to the non-conformance.  ARIA
>> is an attempt to provide real solutions to real problems, and if a
>> developer
>> can turn an <a> into a button and have it render on screen, that is a real
>> problem.
>>
>>
>>
>> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> >
>> > ... a funky custom role
>> > on <h1>. But it does seem fairly common to use an <a> element with
>> > styling and a click event listener or javascript: URL as a button,
>> > instead of as a link. Is it worthwhile for the spec to tell people
>> > doing such things that they are wrong?
>>
>> 1) ARIA is no more 'funky' than microdata - and in fact is much more
>> mature.
>> Bad choice of description.
>>
>> 2) Having the spec introduce or take advantage of a teachable moment is
>> good
>>
>> 3) Why *can't* any element take an ARIA role if it is appropriate?  Given
>> the desire to have as much accessibility baked in as possible, this seems
>> like a trivial thing to add to the spec - any element can take an ARIA
>> role
>> if/when required.  Why limit it to a subset of the entire tool-box?
>>
>>
>>
>> Henri Sivonen wrote:
>> >
>> > Styling h1 to be a button probably isn't a cowpath.
>> >
>>
>> Right, but it *is* a potential out-lyer, and more importantly, what *harm*
>> is inflicted by allowing the <h_> element to take an ARIA role?
>>
> All we are doing is allowing the author to convey their intent. Do I wish
> authors would use html elements for their purpose? Of course. That is not
> the world we live in. Whether we believe something is a cowpath is really
> irrelevant. Industry thought HTML was only for documents in 1998 too.

Do you have any reason to believe that we'll be more successful in
asking authors to add a role attribute to the <a> than in asking them
to change to use a more appropriate element?

/ Jonas

Received on Saturday, 7 November 2009 09:14:29 UTC