RE: FW: Proposal: remove aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification

I noticed that PF/APA/ARIA fell off the email chain, so I’m adding to cc list.

Tzviya Siegman
Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>

From: Daniel Weck [mailto:daniel.weck@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2015 5:32 PM
To: Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM
Cc: DPUB mailing list (public-digipub-ig@w3.org); Zheng Xu; Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken; Charles LaPierre; George Kerscher; Avneesh Singh; Ric Wright; Juan Corona
Subject: Re: FW: Proposal: remove aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification


Thanks Rich, your full email is quoted below, my response here:

1) I couldn't agree more (aria-describedat suffered from that same issue too).

2) I saw sample HTML "chapters" containing a lot of images and linked external descriptions. I would venture a guess that many iframe instances loading simultaneously would be noticeable (even if the embedded documents are small, each iframe requires the browser / webview to bootstrap a separate rendering context). Perceived performance degradation during page/chapter navigation is an ongoing concern, especially on mobile devices and in web / cloud reading systems (due to concurrent HTTP requests).

3) Agreed, but based on my experience developing reading systems (not just Readium), documents embedded in iframe sub-contexts typically cannot be processed and interacted with on par with the primary reading flow, when it comes to ; for example ; annotations (user selections + data attachments), or EPUB3 Media Overlays (synchronised text + audio playback).

4) Arguably, that's achievable with hyperlinks + ancillary reading context too, with none of the the aforementioned drawbacks.

5) I don't think context switching is necessarily a drawback, assuming an "escape" mechanism is provided by the user agent / reading system to restore the initial reading location (Readium's implementation of non-linear spine item navigation does just that, by the way). In a pure web browser with no polyfill to interpret special rel link semantics, a simple target _BLANK would be a viable fallback (minimum required functionality). In fact, even the "back" button of modern browsers (navigation history) does a good job at restoring the location of the activated originating hyperlink.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that although expand/collapse areas cause no issues in reflowable content rendered in scrolling viewports, in paginated contexts it's a different matter, because page units need to be recalculated, which typically triggers the global publication paginator to resync the whole "e-book".

Thoughts?

Daniel

On 6 Nov 2015 7:41 p.m., "Richard Schwerdtfeger" <schwer@us.ibm.com<mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com>> wrote:
>
> 1. The details and summary approach allows all users to benefit in accessing the external description. aria-describedby and hidden iframes don't do that
> 2. I don't think that a hidden iframe is going to take that much overhead if all that we are doing is bringing in an external description
> 3. An IFrame can be accessed by all users and not just screen reader users.
> 4. The IFrame would address the requirement of the digital publishing people to allow for crowd sourced descriptions as well as alternative content
> 5. A hypertext link would require you to go to an entirely separate document and cause a context switch. Context switches would result in going to an entirely different document and then you would need to go back and land where you left off prior to clicking the link. Iframes are expanded inside the details and appear like a div to assistive technologies and the tabbing order would follow straight through to the contents of the IFrame.
>
> I hope this enlightens.
>
>
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
>
> Daniel Weck ---11/06/2015 12:34:24 PM---Thanks Rich. But why an iframe element, and not a standard a@href hyperlink? In the
>
> From: Daniel Weck <daniel.weck@gmail.com<mailto:daniel.weck@gmail.com>>
> To: Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS
> Cc: Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com<mailto:avneesh.sg@gmail.com>>, Charles LaPierre <charlesl@benetech.org<mailto:charlesl@benetech.org>>, George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com<mailto:kerscher@montana.com>>, "DPUB mailing list (public-digipub-ig@w3.org<mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org>)" <public-digipub-ig@w3.org<mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org>>, "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>>, Zheng Xu <zxu@kobo.com<mailto:zxu@kobo.com>>
> Date: 11/06/2015 12:34 PM
>
> Subject: Re: FW: Proposal: remove aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> Thanks Rich.
> But why an iframe element, and not a standard a@href hyperlink? In the "other" aria-describedBy proposal, a *hidden* iframe is used to host the external document, but this was very much a hack to work around the fact that the described-by attribute ; unlike described-at ; cannot reference an external resource directly (thus the proposed iframe level of indirection).
> With detail+summary, the original content document / primary reading flow is interfered with anyway (structually and visually), so I do not understand the rationale for embedding an additional iframe (which ; by the way ; is likely to hinder page loading performance in cases where there are many descriptions).
> Surely, now that the battle is lost for a "hidden" attribute, we might as well promote a regular HTML hyperlink? This would address the objections raised by a number of browser vendors, when it comes to agreeing on best practice regarding the access mechanism for general-purpose out-of-line descriptions.
> Could you please enlighten me? (or provide a reference to a document that outlines the pros/cons)
> Many thanks!
> Kind regards, Daniel
>
> On Friday, 6 November 2015, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com<mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com>> wrote:
> Daniel,
> You would do that through the use of an iFrame inside of <details> as seen below (modifying ZHeng Xu's example):
>
> Here you go:
> <section class="progress window">
>  <h1>Copying "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"</h1>
>  <details>
>   <summary>Copying... <progress max="375505392" value="97543282"></progress> 25%</summary>
>    <iframe src="xxx"</iframe>
>   </details>
>
>
> at the url xxx:
>
> <html>
> ...
> <body>
> <dl>
>    <dt>Transfer rate:</dt> <dd>452KB/s</dd>
>    <dt>Local filename:</dt> <dd>/home/rpausch/raycd.m4v</dd>
>    <dt>Remote filename:</dt> <dd>/var/www/lectures/raycd.m4v</dd>
>    <dt>Duration:</dt> <dd>01:16:27</dd>
>    <dt>Colour profile:</dt> <dd>SD (6-1-6)</dd>
>    <dt>Dimensions:</dt> <dd>320㈴0</dd>
>   </dl>
> </dl>
> </body>
> </html>
>
> Best,
> Rich
>
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
>
> Daniel Weck ---11/05/2015 05:00:48 PM---Thank you, but this is an *inline* description. How would detail+summary be used for *external* long
>
> From: Daniel Weck <daniel.weck@gmail.com<mailto:daniel.weck@gmail.com>>
> To: Zheng Xu <zxu@kobo.com<mailto:zxu@kobo.com>>
> Cc: "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>>, Avneesh Singh <avneesh.sg@gmail.com<mailto:avneesh.sg@gmail.com>>, Charles LaPierre <charlesl@benetech.org<mailto:charlesl@benetech.org>>, George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com<mailto:kerscher@montana.com>>, "DPUB mailing list (public-digipub-ig@w3.org<mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org>)" <public-digipub-ig@w3.org<mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org>>
> Date: 11/05/2015 05:00 PM
> Subject: Re: FW: Proposal: remove aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> Thank you, but this is an *inline* description. How would
> detail+summary be used for *external* long descriptions? (as per
> Rich's email, it looks like ARIA's describedat will be removed)
> If the plan is to use a regular a@href HTML hyperlink within the
> detail element markup, then my previous comments apply. If not, what
> is the plan? :)
> Daniel
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 10:34 PM, Zheng Xu <zxu@kobo.com<mailto:zxu@kobo.com>> wrote:
> > Found details/summary example in html5 http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/semantics.html#the-details-element

> >
> > And here is a code snippet:
> > =======================================
> > <section class="progress window">
> >  <h1>Copying "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"</h1>
> >  <details>
> >   <summary>Copying... <progress max="375505392" value="97543282"></progress> 25%</summary>
> >   <dl>
> >    <dt>Transfer rate:</dt> <dd>452KB/s</dd>
> >    <dt>Local filename:</dt> <dd>/home/rpausch/raycd.m4v</dd>
> >    <dt>Remote filename:</dt> <dd>/var/www/lectures/raycd.m4v</dd>
> >    <dt>Duration:</dt> <dd>01:16:27</dd>
> >    <dt>Colour profile:</dt> <dd>SD (6-1-6)</dd>
> >    <dt>Dimensions:</dt> <dd>320㈴0</dd>
> >   </dl>
> >  </details>
> > </section>
> > =======================================
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jeff
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Daniel Weck <daniel.weck@gmail.com<mailto:daniel.weck@gmail.com>>
> > Sent: November 5, 2015 2:00 PM
> > To: Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken; Avneesh Singh; Charles LaPierre; George Kerscher
> > Cc: DPUB mailing list (public-digipub-ig@w3.org<mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org>)
> > Subject: Re: FW: Proposal: remove aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification
> >
> > Hello, I would like to see an example too.
> > I must admit, at the moment I fail to see how detail+summary falls
> > into the same category as aria-describedAt / longdesc. Aren't these
> > two competing / mutually-exclusive design approaches? If I remember
> > correctly, the latter was considered in the first place because a
> > simple URL attribute has minimal interference with the structure and
> > visuals of the "primary" reading flow (which is what I thought
> > publishers requested). Conversely, detail+summary requires the
> > insertion of additional markup in the vicinity of the described
> > element.
> >
> > Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that detail+summary is more
> > semantically expressive, and that it can contain rich markup. But for
> > detail+summary to qualify as a container or accessor for "extended /
> > external" description, there needs to be additional metadata
> > associated with the element (e.g. role value, or ; sigh ; a CSS class
> > name convention), in order for supporting reading systems to interpret
> > and render content selectively (Media Query would definitely help here
> > to). So, this can in fact already be implemented *today* using
> > existing HTML markup, even though detail+summary is arguably a cleaner
> > solution (declarative, with built-in collapse/expand behaviour).
> >
> > I should point out that I have a personal preference for
> > non-obfuscated/hidden features supported by mainstream user agents
> > (standard user interface affordance), that is to say not just
> > specialised assistive technology (which was one of the big criticism
> > of longdesc etc. leading up to the objection of some browser vendors).
> > So in principle, my vote would go for detail+summary, but given that
> > this appears to be a totally different design approach compared to
> > aria-describedAt, I wonder whether this paradigm shift is (1) purely
> > pragmatic (i.e. the battle for longdesc and aria-describedAt adoption
> > is pretty much lost), or (2) if a consensus has in fact emerged
> > amongst stakeholders (disability community, browser vendors, etc.)
> > such that traditional hyperlinking is now considered best practice.
> >
> > Sorry if I am off-the-mark, I may have missed some of the discussions
> > resulting in the promotion of detail/summary as an alternative to
> > aria-describedAt. Also, I haven't seen concrete examples so I may be
> > misunderstanding the proposal.
> >
> > Kind regards, Daniel
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 3:52 PM, Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken
> > <tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>> wrote:
> >> FYI
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> If anyone has samples of <details>/<summary> in use for extended
> >> description, please pass them along so that we can help out with
> >> documentation of best practices.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Tzviya
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Tzviya Siegman
> >>
> >> Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
> >>
> >> Wiley
> >>
> >> 201-748-6884
> >>
> >> tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> From: Richard Schwerdtfeger [mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com<mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com>]
> >> Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 10:42 AM
> >> To: WAI Protocols & Formats
> >> Cc: DPUB-ARIA
> >> Subject: Proposal: remove aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> After discussions with Microsoft and following the bug tracker for Firefox
> >> it appears that <details>/<summary> is going to be implemented at some point
> >> in both Edge and Firefox. This addresses the gaps in browser support. A
> >> media query will need to be created at some point to handle the
> >> showing/hiding of this element, and I see those discussions are happening,
> >> but I believe this addresses the requirements of the digital publishing
> >> industry.
> >>
> >> Since this requirement is being met I would like to propose the removal of
> >> aria-describedat from the ARIA 1.1 specification at the next ARIA Working
> >> Group meeting. Are there any objections? Do you agree?
> >>
> >> We can vote on the next ARIA WG call but I wanted to give people a heads up.
> >>
> >> Rich
> >>
> >>
> >> Rich Schwerdtfeger
> >
>
>
>
>