More thoughts on ISSUE-736 -- names for list items.

This is to further the email I sent last week [1], and based on the 
discussion of ISSUE-736 during last week's ARIA caucus call.

The characteristics tables for the listitem and treeitem roles state 
that an accessible name is required for the role, and that both 
name-from-content and name-from-author are allowed [1].

Since it is required, a list item accessible will always have an 
accessible name.  Consider the following markup fragment:

<span role="listitem">See <a href="http://www.ibm.com" 
target="_blank">IBM's home page</a> for more information.</span>

The list item accessible name is generated from the content, as the flat 
string: "See IBM's home page for more information".

FF, Safari, and IE conform to this expectation.  In addition, they 
expose the contents of the list item as a subtree -- there are child 
accessibles; in particular, an accessible link object corresponding to 
the <a> element.

If the author supplies a name using aria-label, which is allowed by the 
spec, then the accessible name is the text given by aria-label. For example,

<span role="listitem" aria-label="foobar">See <a 
href="http://www.ibm.com" target="_blank">IBM's home page</a> for more 
information.</span>

The accessible name is now "foobar".  But, the rest of the accessibility 
tree is unchanged.  Specifically, the content of the list item is still 
exposed in the same way as it was before, including the accessible link.

Thus, adding an @aria-label only changes the name of the listitem. It 
does *not* override the content.

Questions:
1. Why is an accessible name required for list items?
2. Why shouldn't name-from-author be allowed for list items?
3. Do all screen readers show the same behaviour, namely, ignoring the 
accessible content and only presenting the accessible name?
4. Given that a list item can contain structured content, how do screen 
readers allow users to access that content even in the *absence* of 
@aria-label?

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg/2015Jul/0097.html

-- 
;;;;joseph.

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

Received on Tuesday, 4 August 2015 19:03:04 UTC