RE: Suggested ARIA state

Léonie Watson <lwatson@paciellogroup.com> wrote on 01/27/2014 01:53:31 AM:
> If we move away from the idea of contextual values, I’m inclined to 
> lean towards aria-current rather than aria-active though. On the 
> assumption the former would be reported by screen readers as 
> “Current” and the latter as “Active”, “Current” seems to fit more 
> easily into the page/step flow.
> 
> Previous/current/next seems more user friendly (to me at least) than
> previous/active/next.

That sounds like you assume the most common application is in a wizard 
context. I actually envision this being used in practically every site 
navigator on practically every web page on the web. That is, if a set of 
navigation links has a visual indicator of which one of the links 
represents the page that is displayed, this state or property should be 
set for that link.

An alternative interpretation is understanding current as "not old or out 
of date".

I see the real issue here is that the name of a property in english should 
not necessarily determine the words used by a screen reader to present it. 
While it is good to have a useful name so that authors more intuitively 
understand the purpose, assistive technology developers should still read 
the definition of the property and come up with their own ways of 
presenting it.

Here is a list of some names I have considered:

aria-active
aria-current
aria-currentlydisplayed
aria-displayed
aria-nowdisplayed
aria-displayednow
aria-nowshown
aria-nowshowing
etc.

I am not sure I have a favorite.

We might also want to consider if we want to use this property in tablists 
and accordians. It may be much more clear than selected and could help us 
resolve some of the issues with different interaction models. Whether or 
not it would be mapped differently from selected in all APIs is yet 
another issue.

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
mattking@us.ibm.com



From:   Léonie Watson <lwatson@paciellogroup.com>
To:     Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, 
Cc:     "'W3C WAI Protocols & Formats'" <public-pfwg@w3.org>, 
<richschwer@gmail.com>
Date:   01/27/2014 01:54 AM
Subject:        RE: Suggested ARIA state



Matt King wrote:”
One downside is that would complicate the work of the author as they would 
have to provide an appropriate value vs just a true/false or possibly no 
value. We could resolve that by allowing null if that is allowable for 
properties.”
 
That’s true. If it helps keep things simple for authors, I’m not wed to 
the idea of having values other than true/false.
 
If we move away from the idea of contextual values, I’m inclined to lean 
towards aria-current rather than aria-active though. On the assumption the 
former would be reported by screen readers as “Current” and the latter as 
“Active”, “Current” seems to fit more easily into the page/step flow. 
Previous/current/next seems more user friendly (to me at least) than 
previous/active/next.
 
 
Léonie.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
From: Matthew King [mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: 24 January 2014 22:21
To: lwatson@paciellogroup.com
Cc: 'W3C WAI Protocols & Formats'; richschwer@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Suggested ARIA state
 
One downside is that would complicate the work of the author as they would 
have to provide an appropriate value vs just a true/false or possibly no 
value. We could resolve that by allowing null if that is allowable for 
properties. 

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
mattking@us.ibm.com 



From:        Léonie Watson <lwatson@paciellogroup.com> 
To:        Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, 
Cc:        "'W3C WAI Protocols & Formats'" <public-pfwg@w3.org>, <
richschwer@gmail.com> 
Date:        01/24/2014 01:33 PM 
Subject:        RE: Suggested ARIA state 




Matt King wrote: 
“BTW, I had envisioned aria-active as a state rather than a property. The 
context communicates what is active, so I am not sure I see the value in 
adding values like "page". Perhaps you could elaborate on the importance 
of that?” 
  
I’d been thinking of it as a state, but realise that having different 
values would make it a property instead. 
  
  
The idea behind the different values was to provide greater contextual 
information for ATs. A screen reader might announce “Current page”, or 
“Current step” for example. 
  
  
Léonie. 
  
From: Matthew King [mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: 24 January 2014 16:30
To: lwatson@paciellogroup.com
Cc: 'W3C WAI Protocols & Formats'; richschwer@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Suggested ARIA state 
  
Léonie, 

I mention this as one part of issue 633, which I see as a urgent and 
critical issue; it is on the agenda in the F2F. Although we could add the 
aria-active property without the additional roles, they go hand in hand. 

BTW, I had envisioned aria-active as a state rather than a property. The 
context communicates what is active, so I am not sure I see the value in 
adding values like "page". Perhaps you could elaborate on the importance 
of that? 

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
mattking@us.ibm.com 



From:        Léonie Watson <lwatson@paciellogroup.com> 
To:        <richschwer@gmail.com>, "'W3C WAI Protocols & Formats'" <
public-pfwg@w3..org>, 
Date:        01/24/2014 04:10 AM 
Subject:        Suggested ARIA state 





Rich, 
 
A little while ago I re-surfaced the idea of an ARIA state that would 
indicate the currently selected page within a collection or step within a 
process [1]. The idea developed through the thread [2]. 
 
The idea is for an attribute (possibly aria-active or aria-current) that 
could be applied to a link. Possible values for the attribute would 
include “step” and “page”. 
 
For example: 
 
<ul> 
  <li><a href="home.html">Home</a></li> 
  <li><a href="about.html" aria-active="page">About us</a></li> 
  <li><a href="contact.html">Contact us</a></li> 
</ul> 
 
Or: 
 
<ol> 
  <li><a href="name.html">Provide your name</a></li> 
  <li><a href="address.html" aria-active="step">Provide your 
address</a></li> 
  <li><a href="phone.html">Provide your phone number</a></li> 
</ol> 
 
As Matt King pointed out, programmatically indicating this information is 
currently achieved through less than ideal design patterns (3]. 
I should have asked earlier in the week, but Doug’s email reminded me. If 
there is time at the F2F meeting, perhaps this idea could be looked at for 
ARIA 1.1? 
 
Léonie.. 
 
[1] http://www.w3.org/mid/023101cecbfc$e7f2cfd0$b7d86f70$@tink.co.uk 
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg/2013Oct/0065.html 
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg/2013Oct/0072.html 
The Paciello Group. 
The Paciello Group. 
The Paciello Group.