- From: Joseph Scheuhammer <clown@utoronto.ca>
- Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:58:07 -0400
- To: Jon Gunderson <jongund@illinois.edu>
- CC: "Schnabel, Stefan" <stefan.schnabel@sap.com>, Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, wai-xtech@w3.org
It could either be an alert [1], or a status indicator [2], or a
progressbar [3], although I have misgivings for alert.
Alert is an "assertive" live region, and that may not apply to this
situation. I can't tell from your description. Status, a "polite" live
region, is another possibility.
Even so, an alert generally appears as a one-time event. The situation
you describe has a duration, and should involve "aria-busy" [4]. You
could use an alert at the end of the loading operation to signal to the
user that it has completed.
Progressbar, another "polite" live region that supports "aria-busy", is
the best choice:
- "An element that displays the progress status for tasks that take a
long time."
- "If the progressbar is describing the loading progress of a particular
region of a page, ... set the aria-busy attribute to true on the region
until it is finished loading."
Also, a progressbar can be indeterminate, and that seems to apply
here. Visually, indeterminate progressbars can be rendered in any
number of ways including a bar with an animated stripe ("barber pole"),
a spinning beach ball, a watch, an hour glass, and so on. That sounds
like what you describe, i.e., "an animated gif".
[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#alert
[2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#status
[3] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#progressbar
[4] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#aria-busy
--
;;;;joseph
'What did one snowman say to the other snowman?'
- "Adrift", D. Hume -
Received on Wednesday, 14 October 2009 16:59:03 UTC