Re: Rethinking the necessities of ARIA landmark role "main" and HTML5 <main> element

Hi Sailesh,

in general I agree with you, we should not be coding around bugs, but
sometimes it is necessary to in order to meet a clients requirents. I
actually put that test together in repsonse to an issue jared from webaim
brought up where he was trying get landmarks to work for a client (as I
recall).

We also have the issue that most AT vendors (unlike most browser vendors)
do not have a reasonable and transparent process for filing and resolving
bugs and also the AT vendors do not attempt to adhere to web standards in
many cases.



The FORM element has existed since the dawn of HTML, so why is
> role=form required?


2 things to note
1. there is not a 1 to 1 mapping between the  form landmark and the form
element. the form element does not always represent the appropriate
containment of a UI form component to be identified as such for users.
2. although as you state, the form element has been around since the dawn
of HTML a majority of accessibility APIs do not define a specific form role
[1]. Look at the mapping of form role in the ARIA impelementation guide to
see what I mean.


[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-implementation/#mapping_role_table

with regards

--
SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
 <http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html>


On 24 March 2013 21:30, Sailesh Panchang <sailesh.panchang@deque.com> wrote:

> With reference to Bryan's comment re. JAWS' bug in dealing with form
> controls within role=main region and Steve's response with a fix at
>  http://www.html5accessibility.com/tests/div-landmark.html
>
> I think it is a bad idea to use role=form within role=main simply to
> fix a JAWS'bug.
> The issue should be taken up with FS and FS should resolve the issue.
> It makes no sense to code
> <form role="form" ...>
> That's not  what WAI-ARIA is meant for.
> The FORM element has existed since the dawn of HTML, so why is
> role=form required?
> Also Refer: http://www.w3.org/WAI/AR/comments/details?comment_id=399
> Sailesh Panchang
>
>
> On 3/24/13, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Bryan,
> >
> > this is a known BUG in JAWS, here is a work around for it:
> >
> > Annoying JAWS 13 + IE 9 ARIA landmark role on div element
> > bug<http://www.html5accessibility.com/tests/div-landmark.html>
> >
> > with regards
> >
> > --
> > SteveF
> > HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
> > <http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html>
> >
> >
> > On 24 March 2013 02:40, Bryan Garaventa
> > <bryan.garaventa@whatsock.com>wrote:
> >
> >> **
> >> I have experimented with role="main" in the recent past as well, and
> it's
> >> come up in obscure ways with various clients in the last year as well
> >> when
> >> trying to diagnose weird accessibility issues  regarding ARIA.
> >>
> >> I understand the theory, and I even tried to implement role="main" on
> >> WhatSock.com, but the results were not as good as I hoped from what the
> >> intended purpose of the role states it to be.
> >>
> >> Here is a simple example of this regarding form fields contained within
> a
> >> region with role="main".
> >>
> >> <div role="main">
> >>
> >> <form>
> >>
> >> <input type="text" title="Full name" />
> >>
> >> <input type="text" title="Email address" />
> >>
> >> </form>
> >>
> >> </div>
> >> If you are in Forms Mode in JAWS 13 when using IE, you will here
> >> "Landmark
> >> Region" in addition to every form field label spoken when pressing Tab,
> >> and in JAWS 14 you will hear "Region", which is distracting and quite
> >> annoying when dealing with forms that involve more than twenty fields in
> >> number for instance.
> >>
> >> I've also noticed strange behaviors when other roles are nested within
> >> role="main", as well as when interactive widgets are present such as
> >> role="tablist", and many others. Some of the behaviors I've seen include
> >> the automatic announcement of everything contained within the region of
> >> role="main" when dynamic content changes occur within a localized
> section
> >> of another widget also contained within this broad container.
> >>
> >> So, after I added role="main" to WhatSock.com, I found all of these
> >> issues, and immediately removed it.
> >>
> >> Since then, I'm not a fan of adding attributes just because there is a
> >> specification that promotes it, without performing comprehensive testing
> >> to
> >> verify it beforehand.
> >>
> >> This is something I recommend everyone do, because I have diagnosed many
> >> website issues that are directly a result of developers adding ARIA
> >> attributes to their markup without have any idea how it will impact
> >> screen
> >> reader interaction and feedback.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> *From:* Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
> >> *To:* Charles McCathie Nevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru>
> >> *Cc:* Ian Yang <ian@invigoreight.com> ; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> >> *Sent:* Saturday, March 23, 2013 7:14 PM
> >> *Subject:* Re: Rethinking the necessities of ARIA landmark role "main"
> >> and HTML5 <main> element
> >>
> >> Hi Chaals,
> >>
> >> thanks for the detailed reply to Ian, the apparent terseness of my own
> >> reply was based on the knowledge of Ian's (Yang) being involved in much
> >> of
> >> the discussion[1] that occurred on the WHATWG list on the subject, and
> in
> >> fact being the person who triggered my renewed interest in the
> >> development
> >> of the feature.
> >>
> >> >My conclusions are that differences in the WHAT-WG version are silly,
> >> > but
> >> the element as specified in the HTML specification and as commonly
> >> >implemented is actually very useful.
> >>
> >> It should be noted that the differences (with the W3C definition) in how
> >> main has been defined in the whatwg spec have not been ignored. I have
> >> sought to understand what the reasoning for those differences is [2] and
> >> also asked Ian (Hixie) directly on IRC, but have not as yet received any
> >> response.
> >>
> >> [1]
> >>
> http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/Public/search?type-index=public-whatwg-archive&index-type=t&keywords=maincontent&search=Search
> >> [2]
> >>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-archive/2013Feb/0172.html
> >>
> >> with regards
> >>
> >> --
> >> SteveF
> >> HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
> >> <http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 24 March 2013 00:33, Charles McCathie Nevile
> >> <chaals@yandex-team.ru>wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:21:17 +0100, Steve Faulkner <
> >>> faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi Ian,
> >>>>
> >>>> Ian Hixie, he mentioned that the existence of the ARIA landmark role
> >>>>> "main" is a mistake
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>> I've seen this assertion from him, and discussions about why. I am
> >>> unconvinced by the arguments I have seen. I also haven't seen anything
> >>> that
> >>> reasonably contradicts the data Steve produced to justify the element.
> >>> My
> >>> discussions with web developers, from small-shop devs to things like
> >>> Yandex
> >>> with millions of users across dozens or hundreds of services suggest
> >>> that
> >>> the element makes sense.
> >>>
> >>>  That's very thought-provoking
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Well, it might be. The original proposal was thought-provoking enough
> to
> >>> also provoke me into reading other people's thoughts and research and
> >>> even
> >>> doing a small amount of my own. My conclusions are that differences in
> >>> the
> >>> WHAT-WG version are silly, but the element as specified in the HTML
> >>> specification and as commonly implemented is actually very useful.
> >>>
> >>> The fact that Ian disagrees with something isn't enough to be
> >>> though-provoking on its own. He is clever, and often right. But not
> >>> about
> >>> everything. Some of his insights into accessibility are very helpful,
> >>> and
> >>> some of them just suggest that he knows more about other aspects of
> >>> HTML.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> both role=main and now <main> are part of the web platform and
> >>>> interoperably implemented across browsers and assistive technology
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Yes, and this happened very quickly. That doesn't necessarily mean they
> >>> are a good idea, because sometimes the wisdom of the crowd isn't quite
> >>> as
> >>> clever as we hope, but it suggests that a large proportion of the
> >>> relevant
> >>> decision makers, who on balance are usually quite smart and quite
> >>> thoughtful about what they add to the web, are convinced that the
> >>> element
> >>> makes sense.
> >>>
> >>> A major reason for the element is to replace the "skip to main content"
> >>> links that are all over the web, for accessibility purposes. While the
> >>> use
> >>> of those links is a terrible bit of architecture (they only work if you
> >>> start from the top of the page and navigate with the keyboard, etc etc)
> >>> they are deemed useful enough to include on all kinds of websites whose
> >>> designs have been through multiple rounds of usability testing to
> ensure
> >>> they make sense in practice.
> >>>
> >>> There have been discussions in all kinds of places. Since Steve was the
> >>> big proponent, he can probably provide pointers by digging through his
> >>> email archive, but I suggest you look at the mail archives of the W3C's
> >>> HTML Working Group[1], the W3C's HTML Accessibility Task Force[2] in
> >>> particular. You can also look at things like IRC logs, blog posts, and
> >>> so
> >>> on. A Yandex search [3] shows a handful of interesting perspectives in
> >>> blogs and articles, too.
> >>>
> >>> [1]
> >>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/**Public/public-html/<
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/>
> >>> [2]
> >>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/**Public/public-html-a11y/<
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/>
> >>> [3] http://yandex.com/yandsearch?**text=html5+main+element&clid=**
> >>> 1823140&lr=213<
> http://yandex.com/yandsearch?text=html5+main+element&clid=1823140&lr=213>
> >>>
> >>> Note that this is just my personal opinion, and I am not always right
> :)
> >>>
> >>> cheers
> >>>
> >>> Chaals
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
> >>>       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
>