RE: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!

MSAA has accName and accDescription from before the days when their were 
relationships like labelled_by and described_by, which newer APIs like 
ARIA, IA2 and ATK/AT-SPI all have. It allows you to point to a real label. 
You also need accName to expose alt for images.

I don't want to be the naysayer. I just need to think about the 
consequences of adding something which could be redundant with aria-name. 
It would be bad if authors used aria-name if there was in fact a visible 
label to point to. Has anyone thought of the potential for misuse?

Let's make sure the pros and cons are pointed out. No one has pointed to 
any real world examples where this is really necessary. And, it's not like 
you can't do it now. It's in fact a hidden label so using a hidden label 
fits, right?

- Aaron



From:
"Victor Tsaran" <vtsaran@yahoo-inc.com>
To:
Aaron M Leventhal/Cambridge/IBM@IBMUS, "'Srinivas Annam'" 
<annams@google.com>
Cc:
<sailesh.panchang@deque.com>, <wai-xtech@w3.org>, 
<wai-xtech-request@w3.org>
Date:
07/26/2008 02:04 AM
Subject:
RE: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!



As in the desktop world, sometimes visual proximity, iconic cues are all
that is needed for a sighted user to understand the context. Sooner or 
later
we have to deal with situations where, because of the UI considerations or
lack of screen real estate certain textual cues or labels are omitted. 
This
is why I think what Sri is proposing makes sense. There should be a way to
provide auxiliary information to screen readers (or any other AT, for that
matter) regardless of whether it is displayed on the screen or not. For
instance, the developer may want to provide additional instructions to a
screen reader or go as far as overwriting the name of the widget 
altogether
in order to make it more meaningful.
Otherwise, why would MSAA have properties such as accName and
accDescription?
In fact, accDescription was used by some apps to provide positioning
information to AT.
... Etc ...


Victor




-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Aaron M Leventhal
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 1:06 PM
To: Srinivas Annam
Cc: sailesh.panchang@deque.com; wai-xtech@w3.org; wai-xtech-request@w3.org
Subject: Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!


Sri, to answer the original question you had, ARIA isn't implementing 
title.
The title attribute is part of HTML from a long way back. 
ARIA just discusses where title text fits into the general name 
computation
algorithm. So ARIA really has nothing to do with the tooltip. 

But I thought the more interesting question was, should ARIA provide a 
more
convenient mechanism than aria-labelledby to provide accessible names, 
like
aria-name, to avoid the need for hidden labels. It's clear that the side
effect for tooltip makes it undesirable for developers. I'm just not sure
the use case of having special accessible names rendered only for
non-sighted users is that common for widgets which are not built from
images, that we need to have yet another mechanism. I was saying that
something list a chat listbox that has no label for sighted users doesn't
really need a special name. The screen reader will use the previously 
active
item as the name, which is all the sighted user gets as well. In most 
cases
we shouldn't be adding these hidden labels, IMO. 

- Aaron. 



From:            Srinivas Annam <annams@google.com> 
To:              sailesh.panchang@deque.com 
Cc:              wai-xtech@w3.org, wai-xtech-request@w3.org 
Date:            07/24/2008 07:25 PM 
Subject:                 Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!

________________________________




On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:34 AM, Sailesh Panchang
<sailesh.panchang@deque.com <mailto: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 <http://www.deque.com/> ) 11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite
#140, Reston VA 20191
Phone: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com <mailto:sailesh.panchang@deque.com> 

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Leventhal [mailto:aaronleventhal@moonset.net
<mailto:aaronleventhal@moonset.net> ]
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:40 PM
To: Srinivas Annam
Cc: sailesh.panchang@deque.com <mailto:sailesh.panchang@deque.com> ;
wai-xtech@w3.org <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <http://www.deque.com/> ) 11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, 
>> Suite #140, Reston VA 20191
>> Phone: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
>> E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com <mailto:sailesh.panchang@deque.com> 
>>    ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* wai-xtech-request@w3.org <mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org> 
>> [mailto: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 
>> <mailto:dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org> ; wai-xtech@w3.org 
>> <mailto: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 <mailto: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 
>>> <mailto: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 
>>>> <mailto: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 
>>>>> <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 <mailto:annams@google.com> 
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> Subject: Re: Using title for ARIA name is impractical!
>>>>>> To: Jon Gunderson<jongund@illinois.edu 
>>>>>> <mailto:jongund@illinois.edu> >
>>>>>> Cc: dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org 
>>>>>> <mailto:dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org> , wai-xtech@w3.org 
>>>>>> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
<mailto:annams@google.com> >
>>>>>>       >Subject: Using title for ARIA name is
>>>>>>       impractical!
>>>>>>       >To: dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
<mailto:dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org> 
>>>>>>       >Cc: wai-xtech@w3.org <mailto: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 <mailto:annams@google.com> 
>>>>>>       >_______________________________________________
>>>>>>       >dev-accessibility mailing list
>>>>>>       >dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
<mailto:dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org> 
>>>>>>       >https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility
<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/ <http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/> 
>>>>>>       WWW: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/ 
>>>>>> <https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     --
>>>>>>     Srinivas Annam
>>>>>>     Software Engineer, Accessibility
>>>>>>     Google, Inc.
>>>>>>     Cell: 408.898.4928
>>>>>>     Email: annams@google.com <mailto: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/ <http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/>
>>>>> WWW: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/ 
>>>>> <https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Srinivas Annam
>>>> Software Engineer, Accessibility
>>>> Google, Inc.
>>>> Cell: 408.898.4928
>>>> Email: annams@google.com <mailto:annams@google.com>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> dev-accessibility mailing list
>> dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org 
>> <mailto:dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org>
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility 
>> <https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Srinivas Annam
>> Software Engineer, Accessibility
>> Google, Inc.
>> Cell: 408.898.4928
>> Email: annams@google.com <mailto:annams@google.com>
>>
>
>
>






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

Received on Saturday, 26 July 2008 14:04:30 UTC