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

Jonas Sicking wrote:
> Richard Schwerdtfeger wrote:
>>
>> 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?

Hi Jonas,

We really have no reason to believe any given author will do anything
right *or* wrong; experience tells us to expect both. The real question
is, why impose limits when we don't really need to? Think inclusive, not
restrictive.  

We can see JS libraries do that (add a role attribute to the <a>) for the
author if/when required (as one use-case: ARIA is/was designed primarily
for "DHTML / AJAX").  Moreover, what real harm is caused by allowing to do
so?  We can't envision all uses that authors might dream up moving
forward: look at Bespin and Canvas - nobody really envisioned Bespin like
use when Canvas was spec'd, yet here we are today. 

Cheers!
JF

Received on Saturday, 7 November 2009 19:37:05 UTC