RE: ARIA1 examples

Hi Jonathan,
As a user, will you be satisfied with the "X" as the accessible name for the button in example 1? Or would you prefer aria-label="Close window"? 
The instructional text at the end of the dialog is available to all in the proper reading order; it is a long sentence and  it may not help usability if read every time one tabs to the button. And that would serve as a description ... not a name. 
Will the form controls in example 2 or 3 fail WCAG2 (Level A) if  the content authors omitted aria-describedby?
Thanks,
Sailesh
--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 10/2/14, Jonathan Avila <jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com> wrote:

 Subject: RE: ARIA1 examples
 To: "Sailesh Panchang" <spanchang02@yahoo.com>, "w3c-wai-gl@w3.org" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
 Date: Thursday, October 2, 2014, 12:52 PM
 
 > If the instructional
 text is always visible  and placed below / next to the
 field, aria-describedby will help user experience but is not
 required to pass any SC.
 
 I'm not sure this is something we all agree
 on.  If field specific instructions are not associated with
 a field then it could fail SC 1.3.1 -- especially if the
 instructions are after the field and we have a programmatic
 way to associate them via ARIA.  
 
 Jonathan
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: Sailesh Panchang [mailto:spanchang02@yahoo.com]
 
 Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2014 11:39
 AM
 To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
 Subject: ARIA1 examples
 
 The discussion about ARIA7 made me re-visit the
 ARIA1 examples.
 It is good that
 aria-describedby is available in our repertoire. But only in
 some cases it is really needed to pass an SC; at other times
 it may enhance the user experience without helping to pass
 any SC. Here are some thoughts about the examples:  
 Example 1: Close button with "X":
 Maybe an aria-label  is the better choice here
 for VI users of SRs / SMs.
 Associating the
 instructional text "closing this window will ..."
 is nice to do for user experience but I believe is beyond
 the call of SC 3.3.2 and SC 1.3.1. Using aria-describedby
 adds a lot of verbosity ... a simple aria-label="Close
 window" is enough. In fact this is covered by ARIA14
 and is the same as the first example there.  
 
 Example 2: First name field
 with instructional text:
 Here, the label
 'first name' is tied to the field - enough for SC
 3.3.2 and 1.3.1. If the instructional text is always
 visible  and placed below / next to the field,
 aria-describedby will help user experience but is not
 required to pass any SC. 
 Well if the
 instructional text is displayed only when the field gets
 focus like in  example 4 (iCITA), then aria-describedby
 technique is certainly useful to pass SC 3.3.2 / 1.3.1. 
 
 Example 3 and 5: Buttons for
 Fonts / Colors / Customize:
 Here again the
 button text is good for SC 3.3.2  and 1.3.1.
 If there were a series of such buttons with
 same names, then some section identifier  would need to be
 associated with every button to serve as its identifier. The
 aria-labelledby / aria-label method may be useful then.
 But associating the instructional text for the
 buttons in the example is nice for user experience but not
 required for SC 3.3.2 or 1.3.1. Arguably  it could be used
 for SC 2.4.6.
 The ARIA technique is useful
 as in example 6 when the instructional text is displayed
 only when a button gets focus.
 
 Thanks,
 Sailesh Panchang
  

Received on Thursday, 2 October 2014 18:20:24 UTC