Re: ARIA roles added to the a element should be conforming in HTML5.

Lars Gunther On 09-11-10 09.23:

> 2009-11-09 21:21, John Foliot skrev:

  [...]

> As for discussed use cases:
> 
> 1. To style a link as a button, having JavaScript turned off, is bad 
> practice. If the validator catches such bad practice, all the better.

Actually, I think there are cases when speaking about - and thus 
designing - a link as a button is the best thing.

And how does a link look like, when it looks like a link? There 
are no rules for that.

Obviously, a designer should think twice before saying that a link 
should have role="button". And there are some examples from the 
past - and probably present also - when links were designed to 
look like buttons in situations when it was totally meaningless. 
But we are not there now ...

> 2. If the validator in the future can be used to validate the DOM as 
> well as well as the original markup (an idea I support, BTW) we have two 
> options:
> 
> a. The author may be knowledgeable enough to disregard any reports about 
> a and @role="button" mismatches.
> 
> b. Such disregarding can be done automatically, perhaps with a script or 
> a toggle.
> 
> Let's consider for a while what we lose if we allow <a role="button">:
> 
> * Student's will miss out on a learning opportunity. The quicker you get 
> their minds on the right path, the better, in my experience.
> 
> * People that do care and want to do the right thing and that would 
> indeed fix their markup, might miss this opportunity, since the mismatch 
> is not pointed out to them.
> 
> The more knowledgable authors there are in the world, the more we will 
> have good role models, good blog posts, good books, good advice on 
> discussion forums and mailing lists. Thus what is best for education 
> will be best for accessibility in the long run.

I think the most important thing for us is to understand ARIA - 
what it is for. If ARIA primarily is meant to be a communication 
bridge, then it doesn't really affect semantics of the elements - 
it just contextualize the deeper meaning of the elements a little bit.

I realize that sometimes ARIA can bridge over completely useless 
coding. And there are obviously many best practice issues to iron 
out w.r.t. ARIA. But that seems like a separate issue.

So, I've officially changed my position in this regard and bought 
what John, Steven and Stephane had to sell. Please allow 
role="button" for <a>!
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Tuesday, 10 November 2009 15:53:13 UTC