RE: About "programmatically determined link context"

Just to add on, if one assistive technology, screen reader or not, can do this without resorting to use of workarounds not intended as information or control points then it should be considered accessibility supported.  To me the level of customization of information access beyond "you have access" is all product centric and user preference centric.  Determination of what gets spoken or put on Braille display or magnified should be something between the assistive technology and end-user as long as the information or operational access is available it "can work", should be the perspective.  Taking it to interoperability level of "if" it was configured is a never ending process with little clear resolution in sight.


From: Sailesh Panchang [mailto:spanchang02@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 4:53 PM
To: rcorominas@technosite.es; david100@sympatico.ca
Cc: WCAG-WG
Subject: Re: About "programmatically determined link context"

Ramon,
As a JAWS user, I have found Control+NumPad5 works fine to read current paragraph / list item ... for a very very long time now. And I have tried them in Window-Eyes in the past too.
Using JAWS+T (to read page title) makes JAWS read the nearest preceding heading too.
I have lamented  about the lack of similar keystrokes in NVDA  and VO ... VO lets one read next/prev para or sentenceon a MacBook not the current one.
And please do not get me wrong: My first email pointed to the normative definition you refferred to and that's the basis for the WCAG techniques H77, H78,H79, G53, (all sufficient) and H80 (now marked as advisory).
NVDA and VO were not as widely used five years ago and support by JAWS and perhaps another SR like WinEyes was  enough to deem the techniques AT-supported.
In one vein some argue "x y z is a AT limitation or bug", so that should not dictate changes to a technique.
And then sometimes some argue that the onus should be put on the content developers (by using ARIA) and not AT-developers.
I find this inconsistent.
Note: my first email pointed out that one can use ARIA techniques to  make support more robust in some situations and the WG has agreed to include an aria-describedby technique for SC 2.4.4.
I have written to NVDA developers (James Teh) requesting support for  a keystroke for reading current para and nearest heading like JAWS does . Maybe more users should do so.
My thought is: when two screen readers can implement this, it means it is not something impossible to do.
Thanks and regards,
Sailesh
On Wednesday, May 7, 2014 11:49 AM, Ramón Corominas <rcorominas@technosite.es> wrote:
Hi, David and all,

Unfortunately, this is one of those few cases where the issue is not
only in a technique, but in the WCAG Recommendation itself, since it is
used as an example in the normative Glossary:

"programmatically determined link context

(...)

Example: In HTML, information that is programmatically determinable from
a link in English includes text that is in the same paragraph, list, or
table cell as the link or in a table header cell that is associated with
the table cell that contains the link.

Note: Since screen readers interpret punctuation, they can also provide
the context from the current sentence, when the focus is on a link in
that sentence."

Thus, my view is that we can concentrate not only on depracating
implicit tecniques, but also on describing their lack of accessibility
support.

That said, I agree that there should be a compromise between the
descriptiveness of the links and their verbosity, which can be annoying
when reading them in context (Wikipedia is a good example).

Kind regards,
Ramón.

David wrote:


> I totally support your position. While it is true that JAWS has commands
> that read context while sitting on a link.  (see links below **) it is
> also true that in 12 years of working with blind Screen Reader users
> I've never seen anyone know how to do this or actually use it in the
> real world. At the time, around 2005 when this issue came up, those of
> us on the committee who were advocating for the concern of screen reader
> users were looking for a compromise with those who wanted to ensure that
> authors of hotel sites etc, had flexibility with authoring. John Slatin,
> who was an expert screen reader user came up with this compromise. But
> is important to note that he was quick to say that even as an expert
> JAWS user, he had never used any of these keystrokes or even knew about
> them before investigating this issue with the group. And in the nearly
> 10 years since then, it is still an unknown, and not well supported in
> most screen readers.
>
> I think in light of aria-describedby, aria-label, and aria-labelledby we
> should be considering moving implicit  programmatic association
> techniques, such as "enclosing sentence", and "enclosing paragraph" from
>  sufficient to advisory.
>
> **
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/Techniques/ua-notes/html#H78
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/Techniques/ua-notes/html#H80