RE: Musings on ARIA role="application" blog post by Terrill Thompson

I completely agree on #2. We've had a lot of complaints from users,
complaints that we have no solution to other than to advise upgrading or
using NVDA.


-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Schnabel, Stefan
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 11:30 PM
To: David Poehlman
Cc: Steven Faulkner; W3C WAI-XTECH; Keim, Oliver
Subject: RE: Musings on ARIA role="application" blog post by Terrill
Thompson

1. Jaws virtual mode is *NOT* the default mode when it comes to
role=application. There the default mode is intended to be *Application*
Mode, believe it or not. And when you're not used to that and consider
that a step backward, well, that's debatable.

2. You are right with your update argument. I think Freedom should
provide that mode switch also in a fix pack for Jaws 10 for customers.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Poehlman [mailto:david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com] 
Sent: Freitag, 27. November 2009 14:55
To: Schnabel, Stefan
Cc: Steven Faulkner; W3C WAI-XTECH; Keim, Oliver
Subject: Re: Musings on ARIA role="application" blog post by Terrill
Thompson

Not sure what is meant here by JAWS users users using virtual mode as
last resort but it is the default mode so many will use it
automatically.  It's fine to say that folk need to update but I just
spent $260 doing that for the little bit of work I do in JAWS and it
didn't gain me much.

On Nov 27, 2009, at 6:36 AM, Schnabel, Stefan wrote:

Steve,

This is the reason why you can easily override the "forced mode switch"
caused by role=application with new Jaws Navmode switches in Jaws 11.

The users who complain just have to have this update.

But this is a workaround, not the real thing. Blind Jaws users are also
used to use Virtual mode as a last resort, because generally the web
authors don't care about keyboard navigation.

The article presumes that web authors who have to implement keyboard
navigation will either be lazy (supply none), non-standard (because
there is none, only http://dev.aol.com/dhtml_style_guide which is still
not "W3C official") or erroneous (everybody may miss something), and if
so, Jaws Virtual Mode is the savior.

But honestly, what the world needs is 

a) A standardized Specification how to do Keyboard Navigation for/in Web
Widgets authorized by W3C

b) An explicit checkpoint in WCAG 2.0+ to obey this specification

c) An Keyboard Navigation Consistency Checker for web authors

Too much in web accessibility (especially keyboard support) is still
based on the goodwill of the authors.

The article also deals with something I call "the usability of
accessibility and the expectation interest of users".

Jaws users are USED to a certain navigation paradigm, and if navigation
by HEADING is NOT working in the application mode then either this needs
to be supported in this mode or (as in Jaws 11) was worked around by
having that dynamic mode switch.

I know also votings from the blind community that there should be as
much as possible feature-equivalence between the two modes. Jaws has not
implemented this so far, reasons unknown. But if so, it will make future
musings obsolete and will just enhance the product.

Regards
Stefan


From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Steven Faulkner
Sent: Freitag, 27. November 2009 10:29
To: W3C WAI-XTECH
Subject: Musings on ARIA role="application" blog post by Terrill
Thompson

Musings on ARIA role="application"  blog post by Terrill Thompson
http://terrillthompson.com/2009/11/musings-on-aria-roleapplication.html
 
there should be discussion on the issues raised in this post. 
-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

www.paciellogroup.com | www.wat-c.org
Web Accessibility Toolbar -
http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html

Received on Monday, 30 November 2009 19:21:47 UTC