[Fwd: ARIA Roles and SVG]

Hi-

I mistakenly sent these emails to Lisa Seeman directly before (rather 
than the public list), and I just wanted to make sure that my comments 
weren't lost in the shuffle.  (Note, this was from back before I was an 
employee of W3C, and not all of my comments may be current, particularly 
regarding 'role'.)

Regards-
-Doug Schepers
W3C Staff Contact, SVG, CDF, and WebAPI


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: ARIA Roles and SVG
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:08:40 -0400
From: Doug Schepers <doug.schepers@vectoreal.com>
To: lisa@ubaccess.com

Hi, Lisa-

Doug Schepers, here... we met at the 2006 Tech Plenary in Mandelieu.
I'm on the SVG WG, and I am working with Chaals to create the new SVG
accessibility note, and probably the CDF accessibility note as well.

My main purpose to this email is just to touch base and open a channel
of communication, since I think there is a lot we should coordinate on.

I am reviewing ARIA [1] with great interest.  I've had similar ideas in
the past, and I'm pleased to see that it is shaping up.  I think this
work has utility far beyond the traditional understanding of
accessibility (which, of course, makes it more likely to take hold).
I'm also glad that you pay specific attention to SVG.

I had a couple of comments about the Aria spec.  Please feel free to
pass this email on to interested parties or WGs.

Widget Roles
* combobox: "Combobox is a presentation of a select, where you can type
to locate a selected item."

  At least in C++ (which is where I first used combobox), a combobox is
not just a select, it's also an input... you can often (but not always)
locate and select a preexisting menu option, but the primary purpose is
to allow the choice of either selecting a menu option or inputing a
custom choice instead.  I don't know if this corresponds to how it works
in XForms, but I think it should.

* textarea and textfield: "This is a multi-line editable text box. For
use when no standard form element exists with this functionality.
Intended use is in languages that do not have a textarea object (such as
SVG). The user would use this role when additional states or properties
are applied to a standard textarea control. This is to indicate to the
user agent that it must process additional states and properties such as
invalid and required."

  SVG Tiny 1.2 (and subsequently in Full) introduces the 'textArea'
element [2] and the 'editable' property [3].  These can be combined to
create an editable textarea [4], or can made readonly (one of the
options you list under "inherited states").

I would very much like to reference ARIA in the SVG Accessibility Note.
  This document is still in its early stages, but it would helpful to
know what the schedule for ARIA is.

Also, I would like to help with this effort in whatever way I can.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-role/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/text.html#TextAreaElement
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/text.html#text-edit
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/text.html#textArea02

Regards-
-Doug


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: ARIA Roles and SVG
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:35:39 -0400
From: Doug Schepers <doug@schepers.cc>
To: lisa@ubaccess.com
References: <4627BE38.6050001@vectoreal.com>

Hi, Lisa-

A couple more comments.

First, I realized that I hadn't captured the intent of my comment on
'svg:textArea', 'svg:text', and the 'editable' attribute.  I actually
see ARIA as a really useful supplement to these elements, and didn't
mean to imply it wasn't needed (which upon reading my own mail I saw as
a possible interpretation).  Quite the contrary.

Second, SVG does not have a 'role' attribute as does HTML.  It would be
really useful if ARIA could define a 'role' attribute in its or some
related namespace (wai, aaa, aria).  That way, we could import it as-is,
with nothing else needed from SVG.  It would also have the benefit of
shortening the attribute values, making it more likely to be used.  Many
people don't like the idea of q-names as attribute values, so it would
address that as well.

I see it looking something like this:

<svg version="1.2" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
   xmlns:aria="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/wai-rdf/">

   <textArea id="comments" aria:role="textarea" aria:state="enabled"
     x="10" y="100" width="200" height="300" font-size="25"
     font-family="Georgia, serif" fill="red">Input your coments
     here.</textArea>

</svg>


Regards-
-Doug

Received on Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:50:48 UTC