Re: Question #2 on 4.1.1 Parsing - what it covers - ARIA? and How? - and SVG

The original question was on the narrowness of 4.1.1, it includes 4 items, and that wouldn’t include a mis-spelled ARIA attribute. Many (most?) people agreed it only covered those 4 items.

So a dodgy ARIA attribute might be a validation failure in HTML, but isn’t an accessibility issue according to WCAG 2.
(It seems like it should be, but is only  caught by not working for 1.3.1 / 4.1.2.)

-Alastair


From: "faulkner.steve" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com<mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com>>
Date: Monday, 1 February 2016 at 12:32
To: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com<mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com>>
Cc: David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca<mailto:david100@sympatico.ca>>, Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com<mailto:ryladog@gmail.com>>, GLWAI Guidelines WG org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: Question #2 on 4.1.1 Parsing - what it covers - ARIA? and How? - and SVG

Apologies if I am being dense but I am a little flummoxed as to how any attributes used in HTML are not included in the parsing criteria. HTML defines how ARIA attributes are to be used in HTML as it does for a host of other features from other specs, what is the issue?

--

Regards

SteveF
Current Standards Work @W3C<http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/03/current-standards-work-at-w3c/>

On 1 February 2016 at 11:28, Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com<mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com>> wrote:
David MacDonald wrote:
> Strictly speaking malformed aria would be limited to 1.3.1, or 4.1.2 (or perhaps 1.1.1 on image or
>  input name messups.)
> Not what I would want... would love to include in 4.1.1 but it is not specified there. Wai-aria wasn't around yet.

I think it’s clear that a mis-spelled attribute (e.g. ARIA) would affect ATs in a similar way to a mis-spelled HTML tag, so ideally we could add to or change the SC so that “elements and attributes are complete and nested according to their specifications”.

Not sure how given the process, but it would be helpful.

I agree that it would trigger issues under 4.1.2 so it is not a catastrophic issue, but as Gregg said "4.1.1 was intended to protect AT against errors  (or sloppy code practices)”. ARIA is exactly the sort of thing a developer wouldn’t notice as it isn’t visually apparent in regular browsers, so it would fit better there.

Jason mentioned that ARIA was "was around and under active development from 2004-2008”. It was around as a spec, but it was not implemented widely enough for there to be evidence of those type of errors affecting ATs, which was the basis for things included in 4.1.1.  I think there is now.

-Alastair