Re: Element.getComputedRole()

Alex Surkov wrote:

>> 2) it doesn't make sense to expose accessible properties on every DOM
>> element (like on inaccessible DOM elements) and Element API approach cannot

...

>> I would design an Accessible interface instead following the accessibility
>> desktop APIs.
>> interface Accessible {
>> string role;
>> };
>> 
>> Then DOM Window object can be extended by:
>> interface Window {
>> Accessible getAccessibleFor(Node aNode);
>> };


The "'Accessible' adjective used as noun" makes for awkward API. What about "AccessibleElement" or "AccessibilityElement" instead?

interface AccessibilityElement {
  // Some of these might not need to be an accessors methods. Could be string properties as you suggested.
  String computedRole();
  String computedLabel();
  Element element(); // reverse relationship back to DOM element, or null.
  AccessibilityElement accessibilityParentElement();
  Array accessibilityChildren();
};
partial interface Element {
  AccessibilityElement accessibilityElement();
};


Dominic wrote:

> Sure, I think it's a good idea.
> 
> How about getComputedAccessibleText next?
> 
> In both Blink and WebKit I imagine we'll have to think about efficiency when implementing this - typically we enable accessibility lazily and then leave it on - at least for that page. We'd want to use the real accessibility code to compute this, but then disable accessibility support and clean up if it wasn't enabled previously.

+Chris, who had similar concerns.