Re: Widget Accessibility

Hi there Marcos, sorry for the delay in responding - I've been  
thinking about this...

It seems to me that the current aspects of accessibility and  
notification is built in general for content, yet we are trying to  
use it in the context of applications.

If the Web 'page' is going to present content we need content  
accessibility (which we kind-of have).
If the Web 'page' is an application we need application accessibility  
(which we don't have).

To me this seems to suggest that we need the kind of accessibility  
solutions found in languages such as Java - in which there is an  
accessibility bridge connecting the Java interpreter to the OS. Rich  
accessibility based in an implicit knowledge of the well-structured  
data and the way a complicated structure, such as a swing widget,  
should be navigated and interacted with. This can only come with a  
knowledge of the explicit structural and navigational semantics of  
the widget, component, or application framework. Indeed, I would also  
suggest that this accessibility can be mainly facilitated without the  
knowledge of the developer, purely based on this groups  
specifications of widgets and applications.

As far as I can see, the browser is the (JavaScript+HTML)  
interpreter, therefore a richer accessibility bridge is required,  
which will not be addressed by ARIA alone.

Cheers
Si.

=======================

Simon Harper
University of Manchester (UK)

Human Centred Web Lab: http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk

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On 7 Aug 2009, at 16:31, Marcos Caceres wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Simon
> Harper<simon.harper@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hi there,
>> I've been looking through the widget specifications specifically  
>> 'Widgets
>> 1.0: The Widget Landscape (Q1 2008)' - Figure 1 at
>> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets-land/
>>
>> I wonder if there is any concept of an accessibility bridge in  
>> either the
>> widget of web application specifications. I was thinking of  
>> something like
>> the Java Accessibility Bridge which links the code to the  
>> interpreter and on
>> to the OS. If there is the concept of the Web as an application  
>> Platform
>> then are there any similar concepts for making accessibility work  
>> in a
>> uniform way - built-in at the start as opposed to an ARIA addition?
>
> No, not for widgets. Widgets rely on HTML and its hooks for
> accessibility. See also:
>
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets-reqs/#user-interface-accessibility
>
> However, if you have any ideas about a better way of doing this, we
> would certainly like to hear it.
>
> Kind regards,
> Marcos
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Marcos Caceres
> http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Thursday, 13 August 2009 17:52:22 UTC