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

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Steven Faulkner
<faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> Currently the a element is defined in the HTML5 specification as an element
> that cannot have its native role overriden by ARIA roles [1]
>
> This is contrary to use in the wild as it has been overriden by the addition
> of a number of roles in popular javascript UI libraries.
>
> Examples:
> button
> http://jqueryui.com/demos/dialog/
> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/carousel/carousel-ariaplugin_source.html
> tab
> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/tabview/tabview-ariaplugin_clean.html
> menutiem
> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/menu/menuwaiaria_source.html
>
> It is important to understand that it is not ARIA that is making the link
> into a button, its the developers use of javascript, event handlers and CSS
> that is making it look and act like a button or tab or menutiem. The
> addition of ARIA is merely providing the information that other users get by
> default. So making the addition of an ARIA role non conforming, to an
> element that has been designed to act and look like something other than its
> native role, is not the appropriate repsonse.

Wouldn't it be better for these sites to use a <button> element
instead? Or maybe they currently "can't" because you can't style a
button enough to give it the desired rendering.

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 21 October 2009 07:38:13 UTC