- From: Michael A. Peters <mpeters@domblogger.net>
- Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:33:46 -0800
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Hello, I'm currently working on a CMS that I hope will make it as easy as possible to produce proper accessible content. While my personal disability does not cause any issue with using the web, I personally understand how frustrating it can be for someone to be denied or have poor access to a resource because the group responsible for the resource did not take simple steps to make it accessible. There is a lot of work and testing I still need to do, but I currently have some questions about the aria role attribute, specifically the navigation role. There are 3 different types of navigation lists produced by my CMS: 1) Site navigation, links to other pages on the web site. 2) Document Wide navigation, links to anchors at every h1 through h3 level heading in the page. This is in an aside and is not really accessible from browsers that do not use CSS since the aside code is after the main content code. 3) Section Navigation - links to ever direct sub section within the HTML article structure, this list is put inside a header node right after the heading for the section. This greatly improves accessibility when using a browser like links or lynx, as it is fairly easy to navigate to a specific part of a large document. I think accessibility could be improved if there was a way to describe which type of navigation list the list was, rather than just generic role="navigation" attribute in the parent container. Is there a way to do that? -=- Also on the topic of aria role attribute, when testing the output of my CMS in Android using various browsers, it seemed none of them made obvious use of the aria role attribute, even though it would make using a tablet that much easier for everyone. For example, how cool would it be to fire up Opera Mobile, go to a web page, click the tablets menu button, and be able to select main content from the menu. That would seem to be a much easier way to get to the main content than using fingers on the screen to position and select what part of the page you want to see. Is there any hint of mobile browser developers using the role attribute in this manner? It would probably encourage web developers to use the role attribute, as it would make their sites easier to use on tablets. Thanks for any comments.
Received on Saturday, 17 December 2011 23:34:33 UTC