RE: ACTION-1710: Rich Get with Freedom Scientific on our solution for listitem roles

Hi Bryan,

Let me explain. In HTML an anchor tag can span lots of content. It is
essentially a container. You could in fact have paragraphs of text and
other links inside it. So, essentially it is a container.

So, where this all becomes a problem is knowing how to convey the label for
the link and the contents for the link in the virtual buffer. Do you stop
at just the label or do you include the content within the link. Many
developers are being told they must apply a label to a listitems and
apparently that is happening on links. If we require a name and the author
has not applied a label then we have an accessible name on the link
computed using name from content. Then you have the content within the
link.

If instead we say we don't require a name and name from content is not
supported this then allows the author to apply a label to the link as is
the link was a container, and the name is derived from that, if the author
so chooses. At this point the content of the link (could be paragraphs of
text) could then be accessed as content within the link. We also, never
have a name that is computed from the content and then the content of the
link in the screen reader view right after it.

Does this help? I think the issue is that role="link" and anchor tags
really can span large amounts of content the same way as a list item.

Cheers,
Rich


Rich Schwerdtfeger



From: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com>
To: Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, PF <public-pfwg@w3.org>
Cc: "cooper@w3.org" <cooper@w3.org>
Date: 08/31/2015 06:12 PM
Subject: RE: ACTION-1710: Rich Get with Freedom Scientific on our
            solution for listitem  roles



I understand the logic about not requiring labels on role=listitem, but I
don’t understand the logic about role=link.

A link is an interactive widget, and like all others it requires a label,
otherwise it will be an inaccessible link that has no apparent purpose to
the AT user when it receives focus.

I may be misunderstanding the bug though, so please correct me if I am
wrong.



From: Richard Schwerdtfeger [mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2015 4:04 PM
To: PF <public-pfwg@w3.org>
Cc: cooper@w3.org
Subject: ACTION-1710: Rich Get with Freedom Scientific on our solution for
listitem roles



I met with Freedom Scientific and they support our solution regarding a
label not being required on listitem roles and that the name not being
computed from content.

What they asked is that we do the same thing for role="link". I have
created a new issue (741) for this:
https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/track/issues/741


We still need to wait on an answser from Actions 1711 and 1712.

Michael, please close action 1710 on the call Thursday as being completed.
I am leaving it open so that the group can discuss it for the call.

Rich

Rich Schwerdtfeger