RE: HTML-ISSUE-192: title attribute definition does not match reality [HTML 5 spec]

What is the bug that caused this issue to come into existence?

/paulc

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329


-----Original Message-----
From: HTML Weekly Issue Tracker [mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org] 
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 3:23 AM
To: public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org
Subject: HTML-ISSUE-192: title attribute definition does not match reality [HTML 5 spec]


HTML-ISSUE-192: title attribute definition does not match reality  [HTML 5 spec]

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/192


Raised by: Steve Faulkner
On product: HTML 5 spec

the HTML5 spec current states:

"The title attribute represents advisory information for the element, such as would be appropriate for a tooltip. On a link, this could be the title or a description of the target resource; on an image, it could be the image credit or a description of the image; on a paragraph, it could be a footnote or commentary on the text; on a citation, it could be further information about the source; and so forth. The value is text."

The title attribute is mapped to the accessible name in all accessibility APIs in all browsers (that implement mapping), so in the absence of other labelling mechanisms, all HTML form controls are labelled by the title attribute content if present. This reality is not reflected in the usage advice quoted above.

There is a WCAG technique that documents how to use the title attribute to label controls:
H65: Using the title attribute to identify form controls when the label element cannot be used http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H65 

Suggest updating the specification text to take into account the reality of how title is implemented in browsers.

Received on Saturday, 10 December 2011 14:19:29 UTC