- From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
- Date: Fri, 25 May 2012 10:03:27 -0700
- To: "'Edward O'Connor'" <eoconnor@apple.com>, "'Cynthia Shelly'" <cyns@microsoft.com>
- Cc: "'Jonas Sicking'" <jonas@sicking.cc>, "'Maciej Stachowiak'" <mjs@apple.com>, <public-html@w3.org>, "'HTML Accessibility Task Force'" <public-html-a11y@w3.org>, "'Frank Olivier'" <Frank.Olivier@microsoft.com>
Edward O'Connor wrote: > > OK, it sounds like you're both open to considering a SHOUD here. > Tangible progress! > > If we go with a SHOULD for this requirement, and update > AllowAriaReferHidden to match, do you think we could come to consensus > on that proposal? > Hi Ted, My single concern is that this is a technique that currently *ONLY* works for users of adaptive technology (screen readers) and currently does nothing for sighted users who may still want the linked content that is visually hidden (using @hidden) but programmatically linked using the ARIA technique. Candidly and frankly, it is well understood by many that this is an attempt to get beyond perceived 'problems' with @longdesc, and further we're already seeing implementations of this in the wild: http://asurkov.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/firefox-14-whats-new-for-at-developers .html http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2012/05/firefox-14-image-long-description- via-link-using-aria-describedby/ Emergent concerns are now over how this would actually work in practice (I get the principle). For example, using this technique, how would the UI 'work' for sighted and non-sighted users? <a href="index.html"><img src="logo.png" alt="The XYZ Widget Company" aria-describedby="logo_description"></a> <a hidden id="logo_description" href="description.html">Our company logo</a> Steve Faulkner notes: "When the image has focus the screen reader user can press enter to activate the link, because a link action showlongdesc is exposed on the image, it uses the URL from the link referenced via aria-describedby." But wait: the 'image focus + enter' in the above example should take the user to index.html and not description.html - how does the screen reader choose which link to follow? And how does the sighted user a) know that description.html exist, and b) access that content as well? One goal of HTML5 is to document reality as it is today (and today, at least one browser is doing exactly what Issue 204 is seeking to address), which is why (at least I) worked with Cynthia to get to a CP that reflects reality, but also fought hard to ensure that warning language was present. Stating that user-agents (browsers) SHOULD support this, while not also addressing the user/usability issue at the same time opens the door to a lot of pain down the road. Cynthia Shelley wrote: > > Building UI for displaying linked hidden content, so that it works for > *all* users, not only screen-reader users, also requires a lot of > thought. I know that some browsers have UI for longdesc, which might > be reusable, but we're not convinced that UI provides an excellent user > experience yet. > > We're not even sure which of these approaches will yield a better > experience, and feel that a lot more work needs to be done before this > is ready for a MUST requirement. We do want to leave the door open to > further development on either accessibility tree or ui-based solutions, > in the future, but don't feel that it's ready for a MUST requirement at > this time. Personally, I'm not even sure about SHOULD, but am open to > discussion on that point. +1 If we are to make this a SHOULD requirement, then we need to ensure that there is also a requirement (somewhere/somehow) that links it to a requirement that it MUST also be exposed to *all users* in some fashion, and not just Screen Reader users, and the conflict resolution (error recovery?) of when the image itself is also a link needs to be clearly thought through and documented. If we cannot get that kind of linkage into the spec, then I would propose that we go with MAY language at this time instead. This still leaves the door open for implementers to move forward and refine the user-experience, but also requires that a fall-back position exist for legacy support. JF **************** MAY This word, or the adjective "OPTIONAL", mean that an item is truly optional. One vendor may choose to include the item because a particular marketplace requires it or because the vendor feels that it enhances the product while another vendor may omit the same item. An implementation which does not include a particular option MUST be prepared to interoperate with another implementation which does include the option, though perhaps with reduced functionality. In the same vein an implementation which does include a particular option MUST be prepared to interoperate with another implementation which does not include the option (except, of course, for the feature the option provides.) http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
Received on Friday, 25 May 2012 17:05:27 UTC