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

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:36 AM, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> So the theory is that if we give people more tools they are bound to
> use one of them?
>
> This to me feel similar to the philosophy of Perl: "There's more than
> one way to do it". I personally favor the approach that python is
> taking, which is "keep it clean and simple".
>
> However, comparisons with programming languages don't necessarily
> carry over to accessibility features. It's quite possible that for
> accessibility features having more ways to do the same thing is
> advantageous.
>
>> 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?
>
> The harm that I see is loosing the ability to have a clear message for
> what the right way to do things is.
>
>> 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.
>
> I'll note that what Bespin did is not valid HTML 5. The spec says:
>
> "Authors should not use the canvas  element in a document when a more
> suitable element is available"
>
> There is definitely more appropriate elements in this case, thus
> Bespin is not valid HTML 5.

Hmm.. actually given that the spec says "should not" rather than "must
not" I guess it's still conforming according to the spec.

/ Jonas

Received on Sunday, 8 November 2009 05:59:55 UTC