Re: Response to your comments on Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org> wrote:

> Comment 334: Media types and CSS generated content in accessible text determination
> Date: 2010-09-13
> Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2010JulSep/0052.html
> Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 - 5.2.7. Accessible Name Calculation <http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20091215/#namecalculation>
> Status: Alternate action taken
>
> -------------
> Your comment:
> -------------
> ARIA's accessible text determination method includes CSS generated
> content:
>
> "because it is possible to specify textual content using the CSS :before
> and :after pseudo-elements, it is necessary for user agents to combine such
> content with the text referenced by the text nodes to produce a complete
> text alternative."
>
> When UAs are generated accessible text, should they only include CSS
> generated content from the media type they are rendering (typically
> "screen") and ignore CSS generated content for other modalities that might
> be relevant to AT (such as the CSS 2.1 "speech" and "braille" types, or the
> proposed "reader" media type). If so, it would be good to make that
> explicit.
>
> It might be a good idea to have UAs expose multiple sets of accessible
> text, as calculated for different media types, /if/ this wouldn't impose an
> unacceptable performance cost on UAs and accessibility platforms would
> allow that. That way AT could takes its pick.
>
> --------------------------------
> Response from the Working Group:
> --------------------------------
> Alternative modalities beyond screen are not in scope of ARIA 1.0. We have
> created an issue to address this topic in a future version of ARIA. This is
> our issue 425 http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/track/issues/425.

OK … but the spec must be 100% clear about what behavior is defined or
undefined in ARIA 1.0, so that is is possible to say whether a text alternative
computation is conforming or not. I'm particularly thinking of UAs like Opera
with Voice here, which provides both a visual rendering and a speech rendering:

http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/voice/

Also, is there a publicly acceptable equivalent to
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/track/issues/425 ?

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Received on Sunday, 12 December 2010 14:43:23 UTC