Re: ARIA's role="" attribute (was Re: [Bug 7509] Consider <dl type="dialog"> instead of <dialog>)

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:46 PM, T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:
>
> For the record, I originally created the @role module for XHTML
> because I  was frustrated with having to scrape content off of
> sites like CNN by looking at class values such as storyText12pt
> and more obscure names.
>
> Well-designed classes can achieve the same end-result, but the
> class attribute I felt had already been sufficiently abused to
> make that goal hard. I have been repeatedly told by folks like
> Tantek of microformats fame that that decision was a mistake ---
> however, tying oneself to an over-used attr like class I felt
> (and continue to remain convinced)
> is too fragile, especially given that the class attr often
> contains multiple values in places.
> Also, it would be hard to go back and fix the large number of
> HTML  pages that use  aclass value incorrectly --- e.g. say you
> started assuming that class="nav" was the site navbar --- you
> would get confused by other uses of class="nav" and likely think
> them to be navbars. Better to rely in such cases on honestly
> authored information --- rather than double-guessing.

Agreed on all accounts.

I was however curious how you feel about microformats adding new role
values. Do you think that is appropriate? Or should they stick to
attributes dedicated to microformats, such as the microdata attributes
and RDFa.

/ Jonas

Received on Thursday, 10 September 2009 22:52:54 UTC