Re: describedBy and longdesc

Charles McCathieNevile, Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:23:07 -0400:
> On Fri, 25 Mar 2011 22:34:27 -0400, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Laura Carlson :

> aria-describedBy, if fixed, and generally applicable, would be better 
> than longdesc. I hope that in some time this will happen, and 
> longdesc will become obsolete.

I don't share this hope. 
I don't see this happen. 
Rant: I hope that aria-describedby becomes obsolete.

Earlier it was said that no application was perfect until it could send 
e-mail ... Today: @aria-foo isn't perfect until it gets @longdesc 
features? 

Describing @longdesc as an edge case IMHO isn't helpful. @longdesc 
points to a description. What's so edge case-ish by descriptions? 

As for @aria-describedby, then it is what is is. It is a pancake. It 
isn't a pie. aria-describedby is used for accessible name calculation. 
It can takes multiple idrefs. How could it ever take links? Is there at 
least a hyphotetical roadmap for that contradicting idea?

  [...]
> However, I don't see a proposal that would change that. It turns out 
> some things are complicated, or unintuitive. There were really good 
> reasons for namespaces not being inherited by attributes, even though 
> that surprises people, and there are good reasons for pi not being 3 
> or 22/7 or even rational, even though that surprises people.

+1
 
>[...] longdesc [...] We *are* helping people when we get it right,[...]

+1
 
>> First off I'm not proposing aria-describedat. I'm suggesting fixing a
>> problem in aria-describedby.
> 
> Which I think is the right approach.

I for my part agree with Laura that the @aria-describedAT proposal is 
an acknowledgement of @longdesc's unique features. I think we need 
accurately specified A11Y features. Allowing too much freedom soon ends 
up like a - ah - certain lottery. Thus it doesn't seem like the right 
approach is to overload @aria-describedby - or any other ARIA attribute 
- with multiple semantics.

ARIA clearly works a bit differently from the A11Y features we are used 
to. We should appreciate it for what it is.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Sunday, 27 March 2011 01:04:12 UTC