Re: aria-describedat

Not sure why we are discussing wai-aria re-naming here... why not  
leave that to the wai-aria group... it's easy to join them, or email  
them, if we want to provide input on what they call things...

On 22-Mar-12, at 2:52 AM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
> <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
>> * It follows an established pattern within ARIA. Why is
>>  describedAT so 'special' that it needs a unique naming style?
>
> Why is "role" so special?
>
>>  A single attribute without the prefix only sounds confusing.
>
> Maybe.
>
> I was more thinking maybe we should just stop naming things using the
> "aria-" prefix.
>
> Perhaps the weirdness of the "aria-" prefix is a good argument for
> just defining new features in host languages not expanding ARIA, or
> for changing ARIA to recommend host languages implement ARIA
> properties by providing implicit mappings from native names rather
> than requiring them to include the ARIA names.
>
>> * It learns from the antipattern set by @longdesc and @summary:
>>  Unique names for seldom used/seen attributes is no good. Better
>>  with an often seen prefix for a range of related attributes.
>
> What gave some coherency to this ragbag collection was mainstream UAs
> were using them only for accessibility API mappings. If we take the
> view that user agents should be building UI on top of ARIA (like this
> spec for @aria-describedat does), I don't think the ARIA attributes
> are especially "related" to each other. They are just abrogating a
> load of common document and application semantics into a single
> vocabulary. Hey, where have I heard that before … oh yeah, that's what
> HTML is supposed to do! Why don't we just add new common document and
> application semantics to HTML and recommend other markup languages
> reuse HTML features rather than reinventing the wheel?
>
>> @aria-DESCRIBEDat, is not completely void of benefits:
>>
>> * It indicates relationship to aria-DESCRIBEDby
>
> What relationship? The one where authors get utterly confused between
> the two? ;)
>
>> * The 'AT' part has hyperlink connotations - @.
>
> Twitter? Email? If "hyperlink connotations" are good, then surely
> "url" or "href" have stronger connotations.
>
>> * Less technical than 'fooURL'
>
> How is that better? If it's better, how about "descriptionlink"?
>
>> and leads the thought towards the content that one points to
>
> I think that's an implicit aspect of any name that suggests a  
> hyperlink…
>
>> and thus delegitimizes misuse.
>
> No, it encourages misuse since it does not make the data type clear.
>
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
>
>

Received on Thursday, 22 March 2012 09:15:10 UTC