Re: False aria-describedby expectations in ARIA Authoring Practices (longdesc)

On Apr 22, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 6:12 PM, Leif Halvard Silli
> <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
>> Jonas Sicking, Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:08:11 -0700:
>>> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Steve Faulkner wrote:
>> 
>>>> In fact, we could even display a context menu item
>>> for each link if there are multiple as aria-describedby allows
>>> pointing to multiple elements, many of which could be links.
>> 
>> Then some would use @aria-describedby for the purpose of the link,
>> while others would use it for the purpose of its text content = purpose
>> crash.
> 
> That is your interpretation of the ARIA spec. One that I don't agree
> with. And based on the subject of this thread, one that the spec
> editors might not agree with either.
> 
> My interpretation is that everyone should see the link. *That* would
> be the best solution for everyone. No matter what we do with regards
> to @longdesc it seems that it's better for AT users if they do indeed
> see the semantics of the elements pointed to by aria-describedby.


I'm not sure if you have in mind the semantics of a link, or the user experience of a link.

The interaction model doesn't have to be that of a link to still reflect the semantics of the referenced text. A screen reader could simply read the referenced content when the user chooses to see a description, including all the usual cues it would if reading that markup directly, but then return you to where you were in the document. I tend to think that would be a better user experience than a model where you follow a link and then navigate back.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Saturday, 23 April 2011 08:32:30 UTC