Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:34 AM, Sailesh Panchang <
sailesh.panchang@deque.com> wrote:

>
> > that makes me ask, why do screen reader users even need a name for
> >something if sighted people don't have one?
> A list box is a UI element - a form control and it needs to be associated
> with a label (SC 1.3.1 of WCAG2 or checkpoint 12.4 of WCAG1). Where the
> design cannot accommodate a visible label, then a title attribute is
> typically used on the INPUT or SELECT element in HTML. In this case without
> a visible label a screen reader user may not realize which list box has
> focus. So a title is a workable substitute.
> The title is correctly displayed by the browser for the container and
> contained elements when moused over. That is the expected behavior. What is
> displayed against the div element is not unrelated to the options under it
> and may actually help more than one disability group. I checked with
> several
> colleagues here and they do not regard the tooltip display as a nightmare
> or
> as something impractical.


I believe your colleagues are talking tooltips in general, not tooltips when
they are expected or unwanted. As I described in my Gmail example where a
popup is expected as you hover over a contact, tooltip is definitely is
unwanted and impractical.

By taking only simplististic cases and convincing that ARIA fully addresses
those cases will create a situation where an application developer will be
forced to make choices which will make ARIA web as standards-compliant as
what the rest of the web is today! :(

Whether we like it or not complex widgets are here to stay. We do need to
consider them and provide for situations like this to grow ARIA and allow it
to be used in every situation.

Coming back to my original question, why is that ARIA forcing me to get the
"tooltip side effect" in order for me to get an @name on these roles? Why
can't I as an application developer have the choice to get the @name as I
want it without showing a tooltip to the user?


>
> >If sighted users are figuring it out from context then why not screen
> >reader users?
> Sure no problem... expose the context programmatically so that  screen
> reading software can determine the context. That is the purpose served by
> these various attributes, right?
> Please also consider: double click to make a selection is not the
> convention
> in a list box for a mouse user.
> Sailesh Panchang
> Accessibility Services Manager (Web and Software)
> Deque Systems Inc. (www.deque.com)
> 11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #140,
> Reston VA 20191
> Phone: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
> E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aaron Leventhal [mailto:aaronleventhal@moonset.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:40 PM
> To: Srinivas Annam
> Cc: sailesh.panchang@deque.com; wai-xtech@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!
>
> Personally I'm wavering back and forth on this one.
>
> Pro:
> I can see Sri's point. As a developer, if I'm writing a chat app, I
> might like the screen reader users to get a nice name for the listbox.
> It just makes the experience smoother.
>
> Con:
> OTOH this is one more thing to localize, so I personally might avoid it.
> In fact that makes me ask, why do screen reader users even need a name
> for something if sighted people don't have one? To me the use case of
> showing something to one set of users and not another is not so major.
> If sighted users are figuring it out from context then why not screen
> reader users? (There may very well be an answer for that, I just don't
> know it as I'm not a screen reader user myself).
>
> Also, adding aria-name does make the accessible name processing
> algorithm slightly more complicated.
>
> - Aaron
>
> Srinivas Annam wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:15 PM, Sailesh Panchang<
> > sailesh.panchang@deque.com>  wrote:
> >
> >>   I went back to the first email and read the issue had noted:
> >>
> >> "At this time you would notice that hovering over with mouse on anywhere
> >> over the listbox area (including where the individual items are shown)
> would
> >> show a tooltip with the title. This is coming in as a side effect of
> browser
> >> usage of title for the tooltip. Given this major UI implication, IMO,
> this
> >> makes the usage of title to get an acc name on the roles mentioned
> highly
> >> impractical. I would like to hear other thoughts or ideas".
> >>
> >> Comment:
> >>
> >> The title is read  by the screen reader not while arrowing up and down
> the
> >> list box items but as one tabs in and out of the list box along with the
> >> item selected which is ok for a keyboard user.
> >>
> >> So my question is : What is impractical about the tool tip being
> displayed
> >> as one mouses over the items in a list box?
> >>
> > The tooltip is useful when you see it once, but it becomes an annoyance
> when
> > it shows up every time you are hovering for some other reason. Going back
> to
> > my Gmail example there is a popup that shows as hover over a single
> contact,
> > now imagine seeing two things one the hover popup you wanted and the
> second
> > is the tooltip. This is clearly a UI nightmare.
> >
> > Again, one point I am trying to make is why is that an application
> developer
> > is being forced to get the side effect of tooltip when the intent is to
> > provide the aria name.
> >
> >> The title attribute in HTML on the opening container tag  (even on FORM
> or
> >> UL or map) is displayed on all contained items if one mouses over them.
> This
> >> is standard behavior in IE and Firefox for a long time and no one has
> >> objected to this.
> >>
> >> (It is another matter that screen readers do not read title on all
> elements
> >>   and I have in the past suggested to FS and GWMicro to change this).
> >>
> >> I understand the more serious issue for a mouse user is that one has to
> >> double click to make a selection which is not the convention in a list
> box.
> >>
> >> Sailesh Panchang
> >> Accessibility Services Manager (Web and Software)
> >> Deque Systems Inc. (www.deque.com)
> >> 11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #140,
> >> Reston VA 20191
> >> Phone: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
> >> E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
> >>    ------------------------------
> >>
> >> *From:* wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] *On
> >> Behalf Of *Srinivas Annam
> >> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 23, 2008 12:53 PM
> >> *To:* Aaron Leventhal
> >> *Cc:* dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org; wai-xtech@w3.org
> >> *Subject:* Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi Aaron,
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:29 AM, Aaron Leventhal<
> >> aaronleventhal@moonset.net>  wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Sri,
> >>
> >> I have the idea, although I had not seen a scenario where you want the
> >> menu text to be different from what's shown visually yet.
> >>
> >>
> >> Not different, but the text is not being shown visually at all in these
> >> cases. Here are some scenarios -
> >>
> >>     1. You have a listbox (visually not titled), which takes focus on
> >>     itself and subsequently on it's list items. Provide a title on the
> listbox
> >>     which has the outermost div and the option items being inside. The
> title
> >>     provided on the listbox bleeds through as I hover over on any of the
> option
> >>     items. (see the modified listbox example I sent earlier)
> >>     2. Have a menu button (with a role of button and haspopup is set to
> >>     true), the button has it's own text and drop down arrow will show a
> popup
> >>     menu and set the focus to popup. Adding a title on the popup menu
> will
> >>     introduce a tooltip as I hover over any of the menu items.
> >>     3. Similarly a tree having the outermost div and a title. Hovering
> on
> >>     the tree items will show the title as tooltip.
> >>
> >> When I first encountered the issue I did not see it so much as a bug in
> the
> >> browser, but I do want to understand why you think it is. What is the
> >> expected behavior when you have a title on a div, should the tooltip be
> >> shown across the entire area that the div is covering or not (since
> there
> is
> >> no title for the child elements)? Would love to hear your thoughts.
> >>
> >> -- Srinivas
> >>
> >>
> >> How common do
> >> you think that is? I take your idea seriously but would like to know
> >> when/why that happens.  Is it because of the Firefox bug where the
> >> hidden descendants are showing up in the name? (Because, if it's because
> >> of a bug I don't think we should add a new feature; we should
> >> just fix the bug instead).
> >>
> >> - Aaron
> >>
> >>
> >> Srinivas Annam wrote:
> >>> I would like to provide an additional example in the hopes of
> clarifying.
> >>> Take the scenario I would have used title which is also the case where
> I
> >>> don't have the text for acc name anywhere else. So by using
> >> aria-labelledby
> >>> for such case you would have to serve the additional bytes which when
> >>> multiplied by the number of times used in your application and repeated
> >> over
> >>> millions of downloads it can make a huge difference in application
> >>> performance.
> >>>
> >>> Here I have code snippets for each case -
> >>>
> >>> *<div class="ofscr" id="stid">*My menu name*</div>*
> >>> <div role="menu" *aria-labelledby="stid"*>
> >>>     ... items go here
> >>> </div>
> >>>
> >>> vs.
> >>>
> >>> **<div role="menu" *aria-name="*My menu name*"*>
> >>>     ... items go here
> >>> </div>
> >>>
> >>>>  From above you can see that there is a difference of 48 bytes per
> usage,
> >> now
> >>> multiply that by three. Now, assume that you have 1M page servings /
> day,
> >>> you get 144MB of extra bytes to be served, all because I couldn't use a
> >>> title! :) Hope you get the idea.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Srinivas
> >>> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:10 AM, Srinivas Annam<annams@google.com>
> >>   wrote:
> >>>> Jon,
> >>>>
> >>>> My point is aria-labelledby is a good work around but we should not
> >>>> *forced* to use it all the time. Additionally, I can not imagine names
> >> of
> >>>> menus and listboxes lying around in all of today's practical
> >> applications.
> >>>> I think we all agreed that because of the tooltip overload title has
> >> become
> >>>> unusable, given that I am proposing that we create an alternate and
> >>>> equivalent, such as aria-name in its place.
> >>>>
> >>>> Srinivas
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 8:02 AM, Jon Gunderson<jongund@illinois.edu
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>> Srinivas,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Personally I like aria-labelledby by since it is very flexible to
> reuse
> >>>>> content already on the page and could actually be configurable if the
> >> web
> >>>>> application, if the developer provides an interface for the user to
> >>>>> configure what is included in the aria-labelledby list of IDREFs.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Example:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> http://test.cita.uiuc.edu/aria/grid/grid2.php
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Jon
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ---- Original message ----
> >>>>>> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:14:02 -0700
> >>>>>> From: Srinivas Annam<annams@google.com>
> >>>>>> Subject: Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!
> >>>>>> To: Jon Gunderson<jongund@illinois.edu>
> >>>>>> Cc: dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org, wai-xtech@w3.org
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>     Let me clarify this, my question is directly towards
> >>>>>>     roles that support title as a way of providing acc
> >>>>>>     name -- getting name from child content or
> >>>>>>     aria-labelledby are different use cases which are
> >>>>>>     not at discussion here. Given the side effect of
> >>>>>>     title to provide a tooltip for mouse hover can there
> >>>>>>     be or should there be an alternate mechanism? Why
> >>>>>>     not have aria-name which can provide the same
> >>>>>>     purpose but without the side effect?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>     -- Srinivas
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>     On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Jon Gunderson
> >>>>>>     <jongund@illinois.edu>   wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>       Srinivas,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>       The "option" role will use the DOM subtree text
> >>>>>>       nodes to generate an accessible name for each
> >>>>>>       option.
> >>>>>>       Jon
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>       ---- Original message ----
> >>>>>>       >Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:02:41 -0700
> >>>>>>       >From: Srinivas Annam<annams@google.com>
> >>>>>>       >Subject: Using title for ARIA name is
> >>>>>>       impractical!
> >>>>>>       >To: dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
> >>>>>>       >Cc: wai-xtech@w3.org
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       >In my continuing series of ARIA discoveries :)
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       >The current recommendation requires the usage of
> >>>>>>       title attribute to provide
> >>>>>>       >a name for widgets of the following roles:
> >>>>>>       combobox, grid, group, img, list,
> >>>>>>       >listbox, menu, menubar, progressbar, radiogroup,
> >>>>>>       slider, spinbutton,
> >>>>>>       >textbox, tree, treegrid.
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       >Now imagine a listbox or a tree with lot of
> >>>>>>       visible child elements and that
> >>>>>>       >each of these widgets (lisbox and options) are
> >>>>>>       being created using a div.
> >>>>>>       >The outerdiv for the listbox having it's role as
> >>>>>>       "listbox" and each of the
> >>>>>>       >list items having a role of "option". Now, assume
> >>>>>>       that the listbox has a
> >>>>>>       >title defined on it (so it could provide an acc
> >>>>>>       name per current
> >>>>>>       >recommendation) like below:
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       ><div role="listbox" title="My Own Listbox"
> >>>>>>       >aria-activedescendant="listbox1-1">
> >>>>>>       >    <div role="option" id="listbox1-1"
> >>>>>>       class="selected"
> >>>>>>       >aria-selected="true">item 1</div>
> >>>>>>       >    <div role="option" id="listbox1-2">item
> >>>>>>       2</div>
> >>>>>>       >    <div role="option" id="listbox1-3">item
> >>>>>>       3</div>
> >>>>>>       ></div>
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       >At this time you would notice that hovering over
> >>>>>>       with mouse on anywhere over
> >>>>>>       >the listbox area (including where the individual
> >>>>>>       items are shown) would show
> >>>>>>       >a tooltip with the title. This is coming in as a
> >>>>>>       side effect of browser
> >>>>>>       >usage of title for the tooltip. Given this major
> >>>>>>       UI implication, IMO, this
> >>>>>>       >makes the usage of title to get an acc name on
> >>>>>>       the roles mentioned highly
> >>>>>>       >impractical. I would like to hear other thoughts
> >>>>>>       or ideas. Or if someone
> >>>>>>       >knows a way of getting ARIA name without using a
> >>>>>>       title.
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       >Thanks,
> >>>>>>       >Srinivas
> >>>>>>       >
> >>>>>>       >--
> >>>>>>       >Srinivas Annam
> >>>>>>       >Software Engineer, Accessibility
> >>>>>>       >Google, Inc.
> >>>>>>       >Cell: 408.898.4928
> >>>>>>       >Email: annams@google.com
> >>>>>>       >_______________________________________________
> >>>>>>       >dev-accessibility mailing list
> >>>>>>       >dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
> >>>>>>       >https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility
> >>>>>>       Jon Gunderson, Ph.D.
> >>>>>>       Coordinator Information Technology Accessibility
> >>>>>>       Disability Resources and Educational Services
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>       Rehabilitation Education Center
> >>>>>>       Room 86
> >>>>>>       1207 S. Oak Street
> >>>>>>       Champaign, Illinois 61821
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>       Voice: (217) 244-5870
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>       WWW: http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/
> >>>>>>       WWW: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>     --
> >>>>>>     Srinivas Annam
> >>>>>>     Software Engineer, Accessibility
> >>>>>>     Google, Inc.
> >>>>>>     Cell: 408.898.4928
> >>>>>>     Email: annams@google.com
> >>>>> Jon Gunderson, Ph.D.
> >>>>> Coordinator Information Technology Accessibility
> >>>>> Disability Resources and Educational Services
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Rehabilitation Education Center
> >>>>> Room 86
> >>>>> 1207 S. Oak Street
> >>>>> Champaign, Illinois 61821
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Voice: (217) 244-5870
> >>>>>
> >>>>> WWW: http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/
> >>>>> WWW: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Srinivas Annam
> >>>> Software Engineer, Accessibility
> >>>> Google, Inc.
> >>>> Cell: 408.898.4928
> >>>> Email: annams@google.com
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> dev-accessibility mailing list
> >> dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
> >> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Srinivas Annam
> >> Software Engineer, Accessibility
> >> Google, Inc.
> >> Cell: 408.898.4928
> >> Email: annams@google.com
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>


-- 
Srinivas Annam
Software Engineer, Accessibility
Google, Inc.
Cell: 408.898.4928
Email: annams@google.com

Received on Thursday, 24 July 2008 17:22:04 UTC