Re: Comment on WAI-ARIA Role: "Widget" is Overloaded Term

Doug,

Mashups call these widgets as well. UI Controls are not broad enough.
Widget to me is short and concise.

Rich


Rich Schwerdtfeger
Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist
Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review  Board
blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer


                                                                           
             Doug Schepers                                                 
             <schepers@w3.org>                                             
             Sent by:                                                   To 
             public-pfwg-comme         public-pfwg-comments@w3.org         
             nts-request@w3.or                                          cc 
             g                                                             
                                                                   Subject 
                                       Comment on WAI-ARIA Role: "Widget"  
             08/08/08 01:12 AM         is Overloaded Term                  
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           





Hi, PF WG-

I think that you should reconsider using the term "widget" in the ARIA
specification.  It's always been a rather ambiguous and overloaded term
[1], and the primary usage seems now to have shifted from "UI control"
to "simple Web application" (cf. the WebApps WG's Widgets spec, and
various widget frameworks by various Web companies).

I think that going forward, this will be a point of confusion for
people, where the use of a different term may disambiguate what your
particular usage is.  May I suggest using a term similar to "UI
control", "interface control", "UI element", or "interface component"
instead?

[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=define:Widget

Regards-
-Doug Schepers
W3C Team Contact, WebApps, SVG, and CDF