- From: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 07:39:07 +0000
- To: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Cc: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>, Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>, HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <CA+ri+VknuXwx5HCiYVQ0v9hjh-cfqfk+O7WxK8WyPZD8Kbw3mg@mail.gmail.com>
hi ben, thanks for the following: they are using IAccessibleAction to provide an interface to @longdesc: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XPCOM_Interface_Reference/IAccessibleAction have filed a bug against the api spec. regards steve On 9 March 2012 06:54, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>wrote: > On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 2:41 AM, Leif Halvard Silli > <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote: > > Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis, Fri, 9 Mar 2012 02:03:12 +0000: > >> How would working on specifying @aria-describedat rather than > >> @longdesc persuade the opposed user agent representatives or otherwise > >> deliver wide user agent support? > > > > I think ARIA lives in another domain than @longdesc: Longdesc has > > demands/options for being available to all users. Whereas ARIA is > > specifically for accessibility. > > It is not possible to draw a line between "all users" and "accessibility". > > People sometimes argue that ARIA only affects the rendering of the web > into accessibility APIs, but (a) accessibility goes beyond > accessibility APIs and (b) that's not what the ARIA specification says > because this reflects a long-running identity crisis in the spec: > > http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/introduction#ua-support > > > I suppose it is entirely possible that > > ARIA 1.1 does not get @aria-describedAT. But I also think that > > @aria-describedAT looks quite different from an ARIA angle than from an > > HTML angle. Just one question I picked up from Steve yesterday: Where, > > would you place @longdesc in [today's] accessibility APIs? The only API > > that has mapped @longdesc to anything, is the Microsoft MSAA api - but > > it has apparently mapped it plain wrong, see > > https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16268 > > I'd normally look at what Gecko has done as part of baking IA2 into MSAA: > > > https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/accessible/src/html/nsHTMLImageAccessible.cpp > > I'm no expert on how this stuff fits together (for that you want Aaron > Leventhal or David Bolter I think), but they are using > IAccessibleAction to provide an interface to @longdesc: > > > https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XPCOM_Interface_Reference/IAccessibleAction > > > Hence, I think that it is best that such a feature is sewn nicely into > > ARIA, in order to work well. > > @aria-describedat would almost certainly need to be expressed in > today's APIs, so if we cannot express @longdesc we will not be able to > express @aria-describedat. > > > Or, just consider how Jaws implements it: > > HTML5 has no chance at specifying it exactly the way JAWS implements > > @longdesc. It is too much details and issues etc. > > It doesn't need to. It needs to suggest an API mapping or (if worst > comes to worst) a DOM query that can be used by new AT to talk to new > browsers. JAWS etc can retain their current behaviors for legacy > browsers. > > >> Authors who want to keep providing hidden long descriptions even in > >> the absence of wide user agent support could be trivially supported by > >> producing an extension specification to HTML that makes @longdesc > >> conforming, along the lines of the HTML+RDFa extension specification: > >> > >> http://dev.w3.org/html5/rdfa/ > >> > >> "HTML5 + longdesc" could then be presented as an option in the W3C > >> validator. > > > > Such a spec would be less binding on the vendors, I guess. So yes, this > > could probably work, from that angle. > > It's not about "binding … vendors", since the HTML spec cannot force > vendors to implement whole user interfaces they do not want to > implement. What it can do is communicate that major browser vendors > aren't planning on actually implementing it. Communicating such > intentions is, as I described, an attenuated praxis of HTML WG in > producing the HTML5 specification. If our goal is just to give authors > a conformance target that includes @longdesc, this can be done in an > extending specification. If our goal is to actually make @longdesc > usable, that requires more. > > >> But to achieve wide user agent support, engagement with product > >> owners, developers, and designers is critical. Switching to another > >> attribute defined by PFWG seems like a distraction that would reset > >> user agent support from zero without doing anything to involve > >> essential contributors. > >> > >> I think the limited accessibility resources available would be better > >> spent on specifying how to deal with the existing @longdesc web corpus > >> (for example, in the HTML to accessibility APIs mapping document - > >> thanks for opening a bug for this) and on coming up with a good design > >> and patch for the Firefox @longdesc bug: > >> > >> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=longdesc > > > > I see you point. And why not. My druthers would be that that we get a > > ARIA-fied @longdesc rather than a new @aria-describedAT. > > If by "ARIA-fied @longdesc", you mean implied ARIA semantics for the > @longdesc attribute, that would be nice. But it's not going to make > any significant difference to what browser vendors implement or > authors use. > > > But I think, in order to make it fit with the rest of ARIA, > > it is necessary that it is the *PF* that specifies whichever attribute > > one ends up choosing. > > As it's not blocking progress on making @longdesc usable, so I think > PFWG can take their time. > > > Yeah, deciding once and for all whose responsibility it is to specify > the long description link mechanism, > > would probably be the most important decision. > > Specifying @longdesc isn't the problem; designing and implementing > effective user interfaces for it is. I don't think it matters much who > specifies it if it doesn't make a difference to how or whether such > interfaces are implemented. > > -- > Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis > > -- with regards Steve Faulkner Technical Director - TPG www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives - dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/ Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
Received on Friday, 9 March 2012 07:39:59 UTC