RE: PFWG-ISSUE-691 (Extend aria-orientation support): Proposal to extend the support of aria-orientation [ARIA 1.1]

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From: Protocols and Formats Working Group Issue Tracker [mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org] 
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 3:30 PM
To: w3c-wai-pf@w3.org
Subject: PFWG-ISSUE-691 (Extend aria-orientation support): Proposal to extend the support of aria-orientation [ARIA 1.1]

PFWG-ISSUE-691 (Extend aria-orientation support): Proposal to extend the support of aria-orientation [ARIA 1.1]

https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/track/issues/691


Raised by: Bryan Garaventa
On product: ARIA 1.1

Currently the scope of aria-orientation is very limited, E.G http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/states_and_properties#aria-orientation

Which only applies to scrollbar, separator, and slider.

The aria-orientation attribute is most helpful when applied to interactive widgets, in order for ATs to convey which commands should be used to correctly interact with that widget type.

E.G Whether using the left/right arrow keys will control a horizontal slider, or up/down for a vertical slider.

This however, is also true for all of the following roles:
menu
menubar
tablist
tree

So, I would like to propose adding these roles to be supported with aria-orientation, in order to get ATs to better represent this information to users.

This support will be critical to ensure the accessibility of complex menu structures that include both vertical and horizontally styled menus as part of the same control, such as within megaMenus, where the left/right arrow keys sometimes open/close submenus and sometimes don't, and the up/down arrow keys sometimes open/close submenus and sometimes don't.

Currently, nothing conveys which is which to non-sighted screen reader users, making it impossible for them to know which command will open/close a submenu or navigate within the same structure.

Received on Thursday, 18 December 2014 23:34:10 UTC