Re: Microsoft's ARIA annotations proposal

Aaron wrote:

> Personally, I would prefer utilizing existing ARIA attributes or adding
1-2 new ones...

A HUGE +1.

I am increasingly concerned about the movement towards adding more and more
ARIA attributes to an already long list that many, if not most, content
authors are not fully aware of.

We sort of get away with this when it comes to accessible widgets, as most
code libraries today have ARIA baked into the mix, and the majority of
developers get their ARIA mark-up "for free" when they use those libraries.
But the number of developers I know who can competently include
sophisticated aria mark-up to their scripted widgets is but a small
percentage of those that I know.

Yes, most mainstream devs will understand and use things like
aria-labelledby [sic], but I would wonder aloud how many developers that
attended Google IO this week could properly explain *aria-owns *or *aria-flowto
*(my bet? less than 20%), and overloading the ARIA spec with attributes
that will need to be hand-authored into the *content* (as opposed to the
widgets) will continue to add a heavy lift on the authors, who
traditionally will avoid complexity whenever they can. The Personalization
Task Force (for example) is contemplating adding an additional 30+ new
author-supplied attributes (as either aria-* attributes or aui-*
attributes) that I fear will be routinely ignored due to author burden, so
anything we can do to reduce that burden and re-use existing constructs
gets a huge vote of support from me.

JF

On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 12:36 PM, Aaron Leventhal <aleventhal@google.com>
wrote:

> Hi, thanks for linking into the Web Annotation Data Model spec.
>
> Just to clarify, we're looking for ARIA or other markup to describe simple
> in-page annotations to a piece of text. In order to do this, we really only
> need two things: 1) to allow an element to point to the related annotation
> ids, and 2) be able to describe the type of the annotation.
>
> We could look at utilizing the Web Annotation Data Model, but it seems to
> provide a lot more than what we need. For example, it allows hooking
> external sources of data, which we don't want. It utilizes a lot of
> structure, and has a markup model that does not match neatly to ARIA.
>
> In the interests of not reinventing the wheel, and keeping things simple,
> I do have a alternate proposal that builds off Microsoft's ideas, but makes
> implementation easy by mostly leveraging existing markup and code.
> Personally, I would prefer utilizing existing ARIA attributes or adding 1-2
> new ones or adding JSON parsing into the mix of how we expose editable
> content to screen readers.
>
> This is just my 2 cents. It is all worthy of discussion and I don't mean
> to stomp on anyone's ideas if they really think the Web Annotation Data
> Model is the right way to handle things like comments and code editor
> breakpoints. I'd like to see an example of how it would work.
>
> Let's get this on the agenda. I have a feeling we are closer than we think.
>
> Aaron
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:19 PM Charles LaPierre <charlesl@benetech.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Also just FYI there will be an iAnnotate <http://iannotate.org> Conference
>> in San Francisco June 6&7.
>>
>> Thanks
>> EOM
>>
>>
>> Charles LaPierre
>> Technical Lead, DIAGRAM and Born Accessible
>> E-mail: charlesl@benetech.org <charlesl@benetech.org>
>> Twitter: @CLaPierreA11Y
>> Skype: charles_lapierre
>> Phone: 650-600-3301 <(650)%20600-3301>
>>
>> On May 11, 2018, at 9:50 AM, Robert Sanderson <azaroth42@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> As former co-chair and editor of those specifications, I'm very happy to
>> answer questions about the the Web Annotation work.  Reading the position
>> paper from Microsoft, I don't see anything that cannot be accommodated.
>> Microsoft even hosted one of the Annotation WG outreach events in Berlin,
>> in 2016, for which we were and remain very grateful.
>>
>> Kindest regards,
>>
>> Rob Sanderson
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 9:31 AM, Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken <
>> tsiegman@wiley.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I just want to make sure this group is familiar with W3C’s Web
>>> Annotation Data Model https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/. I’ve
>>> copied Rob Sanderson who helped author it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *Tzviya Siegman*
>>>
>>> Information Standards Lead
>>>
>>> Wiley
>>>
>>> 201-748-6884 <(201)%20748-6884>
>>>
>>> tsiegman@wiley.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Aaron Leventhal [mailto:aleventhal@google.com]
>>> *Sent:* Friday, May 11, 2018 10:36 AM
>>> *To:* ARIA Working Group <public-aria@w3.org>
>>> *Subject:* Microsoft's ARIA annotations proposal
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hello, I was reading the ARIA annotations issue
>>> <https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/749> and the linked Microsoft
>>> Position Paper on Annotations
>>> <https://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/submissions/Microsoft_Position_Paper_on_Annotations.pdf>
>>> .
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> All I can say is, yes, we need this. With perhaps a few minor tweaks,
>>> the proposal is already pretty solid. It would solve a lot of real
>>> problems in group document editors. This would be very helpful for end
>>> users.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'd like to see annotations sooner than the 1.4 time frame, and look
>>> forward to implementing in Chrome, and working with platform API specs and
>>> AT vendors as well.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I propose we get this on the agenda for an upcoming meeting.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>>
>>> Aaron
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Rob Sanderson
>> Semantic Architect
>> The Getty Trust
>> Los Angeles, CA 90049
>>
>>
>>


-- 
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
john.foliot@deque.com

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion