UAAG, error handling and HTML5

Hi All,

Forgive me as I'm still wading through UAAG and getting up to speed  
with the spec, as such this may be a silly question with an obvious  
answer but any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Currently HTML5 is working to put in better error handling support in  
forms so validation can be handled by the HTML and the browser. An  
example can be found at http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/tests/html5-forms-demo.html 
. Currently, if you make a mistake the offending form field in  
question is flagged by a red outline which only goes so far as in  
aiding accessibility as non-sighted users, colour blind users, people  
browsing with colours switched off and so on will not get the  
information.

So my question is, how far is the user agent responsible for flagging  
errors? WCAG 2.0 has a number of Success Criteria that deal with error  
handling [1] so I'm curious to know where the line is drawn in terms  
of author responsibility (WCAG) and user agent responsibility (UAAG)  
when HTML5 is thrown into the mix. Should the browser and HTML5  
support provision of accessible warnings or is it down to the page  
author?

Cheers, Henny


[1]  http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/minimize-error.html

-- 
Henny Swan
Web Evangelist
Member of W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Education and Outreach Group
www.opera.com/developer

Personal blog: www.iheni.com

Stay up to date with the Web Standards Curriculum www.opera.com/wsc

Received on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 11:33:08 UTC