RE: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and aria-currentfor

“Matt's response: 
Use case: You have a list of 5 nav links ("page 1", "page 2", ... "page 5")
in a nav element. The  link for "page 1" has been activated so that page is
displayed in the main content. The anchor for "page 1" has
aria-displayed="true". When reading the content of the nav element, the
screen reader user would hear something like "Link page 1 displayed".”

 

The problem is that people don’t think in terms of the “displayed page” or
“displayed step”, but we do think in terms of the “current page” and
“current step”. That applies equally to developers and users I think.

 

Léonie.






 

-- 

Senior Accessibility Engineer, TPG

@LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup

 

From: Matthew King [mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: 19 November 2014 19:52
To: Alexander Surkov
Cc: Joseph Scheuhammer; W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: Re: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and
aria-currentfor

 

Alex wrote: 
> displayed sounds like visible with me, something on the screen 

Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com> wrote: 
> Yes, that is the understanding we want to convey, right? 

Alex wrote: 
> Not sure. What about navigation links when all of them are presented and
only one of them is "current"? 

Matt's response: 
Use case: You have a list of 5 nav links ("page 1", "page 2", ... "page 5")
in a nav element. The  link for "page 1" has been activated so that page is
displayed in the main content. The anchor for "page 1" has
aria-displayed="true". When reading the content of the nav element, the
screen reader user would hear something like "Link page 1 displayed". 

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:        Alexander Surkov <surkov.alexander@gmail.com> 
To:        Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, 
Cc:        Joseph Scheuhammer <clown@alum.mit.edu>, "W3C WAI Protocols &
Formats" <public-pfwg@w3.org> 
Date:        11/19/2014 11:28 AM 
Subject:        Re: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and
aria-currentfor 

  _____  




Not sure. What about navigation links when all of them are presented and
only one of them is "current"? 

On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com> wrote: 
Alex wrote: 
> displayed sounds like visible with me, something on the screen 

Yes, that is the understanding we want to convey, right? 

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone:  <tel:%28503%29%20578-2329> (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398 
 <mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com> mattking@us.ibm.com 



From:        Alexander Surkov < <mailto:surkov.alexander@gmail.com>
surkov.alexander@gmail.com> 
To:        Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, 
Cc:        Joseph Scheuhammer < <mailto:clown@alum.mit.edu>
clown@alum.mit.edu>, "W3C WAI Protocols & Formats" <
<mailto:public-pfwg@w3.org> public-pfwg@w3.org> 
Date:        11/19/2014 11:12 AM 
Subject:        Re: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and
aria-currentfor 

  _____  




displayed sounds like visible with me, something on the screen 

On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com> wrote: 
After further work and thought, I am still questioning the name. 
Couldn't we create greater clarity and understanding by calling this
aria-displayed? 

1. When it comes to screen reader users, if I heard "displayed", I think I
would more easily figure out what it means. 

2. When it comes to authors, I would think it would be much easier to
understand the difference between displayed and selected vs current and
selected. 

3. I also would not be surprised if "displayed" resulted in more accurate
translations by vendors of non-english screen readers. 

I understand there is apossibility it would more narrowly scope its
application, but that could be a really good thing when it comes to creating
clarity. However, I have not yet heard of a use case where the meaning was
not synonomous with "displayed". 

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone:  <tel:%28503%29%20578-2329> (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398 
 <mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com> mattking@us.ibm.com 



From:        Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS 
To:        Joseph Scheuhammer < <mailto:clown@alum.mit.edu>
clown@alum.mit.edu>, 
Cc:         <mailto:public-pfwg@w3.org> public-pfwg@w3.org 
Date:        11/19/2014 10:22 AM 
Subject:        Re: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and
aria-currentfor 

  _____  




Revisions to yesterday's proposal: 

1. Clarified that false and undefined are equivalent and false is the
default. 

2. Clarified that UA should not expose and AT should not convey false or
undefined. 

In the following text, phrases in square brackets are intended to be links. 

Aria-current attribute 

Indicates an element represents the current item within a container or set
of related elements. 

The aria-current attribute indicates whether an element represents what is
current (true), or not current (false). If the aria-current attribute is
false or undefined, User Agents SHOULD NOT expose the aria-current state of
an element, and assistive technologies SHOULD NOT convey it. 

The aria-current attribute is used when one of the elements in a set of
related elements has a visual style different from other members in the set
to indicate that the element identifies what is current. For example, it can
be used to indicate which [link] in a set of [navigation] links is visually
styled to indicate that it is the link for the currently displayed page.
Similarly, it can be used to indicate which step in a [list] of wizard steps
is visually styled to inform the user that the currently displayed wizard
content is for that step. 

Note: 
When applied to an element contained in a widget that supports selection,
the meaning of aria-current is different from the meaning of
[aria-selected]. Authors should not use aria-current in lieu of
aria-selected and should avoid using aria-current in circumstances where the
meaning of aria-current would be the same as aria-selected. For example, in
a single-select [tablist] where the selected [tab] element corresponds to
the displayed tabpanel, aria-current is unnecessary. However, if the
selected state of a tab is used to indicate which tab is selected for an
action, such as move, delete, or display (make current), then aria-current
should be used to indicate which tab represents the currently displayed
tabpanel. Examples that further explain how to use aria-current and
aria-selected are available in the [WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices]. 

Characteristics of aria-current 

Used in roles: All elements of the base markup. 

Value: true/false 

Values of aria-current 

true: The element is current. 
false (default): The element is not current 

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone:  <tel:%28503%29%20578-2329> (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398 
 <mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com> mattking@us.ibm.com 



From:        Joseph Scheuhammer < <mailto:clown@alum.mit.edu>
clown@alum.mit.edu> 
To:        Matthew King/Fishkill/IBM@IBMUS, Joseph Scheuhammer <
<mailto:clown@alum.mit.edu> clown@alum.mit.edu>, 
Cc:         <mailto:public-pfwg@w3.org> public-pfwg@w3.org 
Date:        11/19/2014 09:58 AM 
Subject:        Re: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and
aria-currentfor 

  _____  




Léonie, Matt,

Thanks for your clarifications.

> So, what is the best way to write the text so the undefine/false 
> equivalency is clear? 

For the "Values" table, how about:

"false (default):  The element is not current.
true: The element is current."

I'm following the style of the value tables for other boolean aria-* 
attributes. For example, see the table for aria-disabled 
( <http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/master/aria/aria.html#aria-disabled>
http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/master/aria/aria.html#aria-disabled).

Similarly, for the "Value" entry in the "Characteristics" table:

"Value: true/false"

Also, given that "conveyed by User Agents" has to do with the 
accessibility API, I suggest this re-wording:

"If the aria-current attribute is false or undefined, User Agents SHOULD 
NOT expose the aria-current state of an element, and assistive 
technologies SHOULD NOT convey it."

Hope that helps.

-- 
;;;;joseph.

'Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"'
          - G. Bernhardt -