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

On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Steve Faulkner
<faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi jonas,
>
>> Like I said, this was a patch to the code that exposes content to AT
>> users.
>
> how does it do so?
>
> what mecahnism does it use to provide access /point to  to structured
> content only for AT users.

By modifying the code that reads from the DOM and exposes the relevant
information to AT.

> But having read further i do think you are correct in your interpretation
>
> from the aria implementaion guide:
>
> "Note that aria-describedby may reference structured or interactive
> information where users would want to be able to navigate to different
> sections of content. User agents MAY provide a way for the user to
> navigate to structured information referenced by aria-describedby and
> assistive technology SHOULD provide such a method."
> http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-implementation/#mapping_additional_relations
>
> still the problem being that there is no requirment on either browsers
> or AT to do so and as implemented none do it.
>
> So in regards to the leifs original issue with the authoring guide, I
> still think he is correct and that until such times that
> aria-describedby is implemented in a way that matches the authoring
> advice it is misleading and inaccurate.

Possibly, but wouldn't we be building a better world by leaning on
browser vendors to fix their aria implementations, rather than leaning
on aria authors to tell them to "dumb down" their aria usage.

Maybe adding a note saying that aria implementations are still lacking
in this area and describe their limitation would be a good step
forward. That would both tell authors about what works in current
browsers, *and* exert pressure on browsers to fix their bugs.

/ Jonas

Received on Monday, 25 April 2011 20:01:45 UTC