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

Dear Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis:

Thank you for your comments on the 18 January 2011 Candidate Recommendation
of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/CR-wai-aria-20110118/). The Protocols and
Formats Working Group has reviewed all comments received on the draft. We
would like to know whether we have understood your comments correctly and
whether you are satisfied with our resolutions.

Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to us
by 27 January 2014 to say whether you accept them or to discuss additional
concerns you have with our response. If we do not hear from you by that
date, we will mark your comment as "no response" and close it. If you need
more time to consider your acknowledgement, please let us know. You can
respond by email to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org (be sure to reference our
comment ID so we can track your response). Note that this list is publicly
archived.

Please see below for the text of comments that you submitted and our
resolutions to your comments. Each comment includes a link to the archived
copy of your original comment on
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/.

Note that if you still strongly disagree with our resolution on an issue,
you have the opportunity to file a formal objection (according to 3.3.2 of
the W3C Process, at
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#WGArchiveMinorityViews)
to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org. Formal objections will be reviewed during
the proposed recommendation transition meeting with the W3C Director,
unless we can come to agreement with you on a resolution in advance of the
meeting.

Thank you for your time reviewing and sending comments. Though we cannot
always do exactly what each commenter requests, all of the comments are
valuable to the development of Accessible Rich Internet Applications
(WAI-ARIA) 1.0.

Regards,

Janina Sajka, PFWG Chair
Michael Cooper, PFWG Staff Contact


Comment 382: Define "accessible description"
Date: 2012-04-19
Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2012AprJun/0002.html
Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 - 5.2.7. Accessible Name Calculation <http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/CR-wai-aria-20110118/#namecalculation>
Status: Alternate action taken

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Your comment:
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Comment based on Editor's Draft of 16 April 2012, archived at:

   http://www.webcitation.org/673DWtJcY

What is an accessible description?

ARIA includes an algorithm for calculating accessible names and
descriptions (§5.2.7). The term "accessible name" has a normative
definition (§4). The term "accessible description" should also be defined.
Examples should be given of the difference between the two.

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Response from the Working Group:
--------------------------------
This is a good suggestion for ARIA 1.1. This is tracked in issue 632
https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/comments/update?comment_id=382.

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Comment 383: Require host languages to define semantics relevant to accessible name and description calculation
Date: 2012-04-19
Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2012AprJun/0003.html
Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 - 7. Implementation in Host Languages <http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/CR-wai-aria-20110118/#host_languages>
Status: Alternate action taken

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Your comment:
-------------
Comment based on Editor's Draft of 16 April 2012, archived at:

   http://www.webcitation.org/673DWtJcY

ARIA includes an algorithm for calculating accessible names and
descriptions (§5.2.7). This algorithm depends on host language semantics
at various points, for example, to determine label association and
tooltips. The host language requirements should include requirements around
defining precisely how host language features, if any, play a role in the
calculation of accessible names and descriptions: for example what host
language features constitute label association or tooltips for the purpose
of this algorithm.

--------------------------------
Response from the Working Group:
--------------------------------
The name computation in ARIA 1.0 was based on HTML 4 features. We are
exploring separation of host language features from ARIA features in
accessible name calculation for ARIA 1.1, e.g., possible separate specs for
HTML 5.1 and SVG 2 name computation.

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Comment 384: Authors should not use @aria-labelledby or @aria-describedby to point to elements that cannot be usefully converted to plain text
Date: 2012-04-19
Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2012AprJun/0004.html
Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 - 5.2.7. Accessible Name Calculation <http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/CR-wai-aria-20110118/#namecalculation>
Status: Alternate action taken

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Your comment:
-------------
Comment based on Editor's Draft of 16 April 2012, archived at:

  http://www.webcitation.org/673DWtJcY

ARIA includes an algorithm for calculating accessible names and
descriptions (§5.2.7). This involves converting DOM to plain text. ARIA
should require that authors only use @aria-labelledby and @aria-describedby
to reference elements that make sense as accessible names and descriptions
when converted to plain text according to ARIA's algorithm.

--------------------------------
Response from the Working Group:
--------------------------------
ARIA converts to plain text because Accessibility APIs only support plain
text values at this point, so it is not an ARIA requirement per se.
However, this is important advisory information to authors. We will suggest
the WCAG techniques address this in ARIA techniques, and potentially
address the point in ARIA Authoring Practices.

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Comment 385: Clarify what an "empty" aria-labelledby attribute/property is, especially for the purposes of accessible name computation
Date: 2012-05-31
Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2012AprJun/0018.html
Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 - 5.2.7.3. Text Alternative Computation <http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/CR-wai-aria-20110118/#textalternativecomputation>
Status: Accepted proposal

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Your comment:
-------------
The text alternative computation algorithm, repeated verbatim in these two
specifications, talks about @aria-labelledby being "empty". It turns out
this phrasing is ambiguous and readers are not clear whether the spec means
the algorithm is referring to the text alternative calculated via the
attribute or the value of the attribute. Evidence of reader confusion:

   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2012AprJun/0146.html

Not sure why the algorithm is discussing _attributes_ (properly the remit
of host languages) rather than _properties_ (properly the remit of ARIA)
here but anyways…

WAI-ARIA defines the type of the @aria-labelledby property as "ID reference
list" (§6.6), "ID reference list" as a "list of one or more ID
references", and "ID reference" as a "[r]eference to the ID of another
element in the same document" (§6.4).

    http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/states_and_properties#aria-labelledby

   
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/states_and_properties#propcharacteristic_value

Consequently, conforming documents cannot set the @aria-labelledby property
to an empty list or include references to elements that are not in the same
document.

--------------------------------
Response from the Working Group:
--------------------------------
We will explore your suggestions in enhancements for ARIA 1.1.

Received on Tuesday, 21 January 2014 00:24:22 UTC