RE: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion

Many thanks for clarification, Janina.

IMHO, the simple fact that also user agents (UAs) running without any assistive technology attached CAN do something with ARIA metadata (e.g. exposing e.g. aria-label string and aria-labelledby, aria-describedby, aria-describedat node content in dialogs like they do already for alt and longdesc info) is a bit neglected.

ARIA support/mapping in user agents does so much "in parallel" or "likewise" the respective host language mappings. Isn't that worth a discussion "display and use of selected ARIA properties for end users not using AT", too?

Same story goes with landmarks. Why I do need Jaws to get a tree view of their hierarchy to navigate??? Why can't this and the last paragraph part of the UAIG 1.1 requiring or at least recommending a respective functionality from the User Agent itself?? Or is this self-evident that e,g. an improved UA section navigation for HTML5 will yield this as "reusable functionality"?

Bottom line, I feel the entire topic "using ARIA without AT and only the UA" was not in focus for good reasons, but if this is now and forever taken as fundament for decisions I go hmmmmmm.

In case we had already this discussion and a resolution, I apologize, I must have missed it and I would be thankful if somebody can point me to the references.

Regards
Stefan

-----Original Message-----
From: Janina Sajka [mailto:janina@rednote.net] 
Sent: Mittwoch, 29. Januar 2014 16:34
To: w3c-wai-pf@w3.org; wai-xtech@w3.org
Subject: Re: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion

We touched on one very specific reason why alt remains important during
our F2F last week.


The reason is simply this: Not everyone who requires accessibility
support uses assistive technology. So, not everyone is being served by
ARIA's alt alternatives today.

Yes, we noted that there are problems with browser behavior when images
are turned off, but we agreed these are defects on browsers that should
be documented in bug filings.


We also discussed, though came to no clear understanding, how ARIA might
be used by user agents apart from AT and a11y APIs. Should we figure
this out, this reason for keeping alt would be resolved.

Janina

Schnabel, Stefan writes:
> Hi Cynthia,
> 
> I disliked *alt=""* from the beginning since it mimics being explicit by misusing an attribute not designed for this purpose. 
> *aria-hidden* or *role ="presentation"* is much more explicit to be used with decorative images. 
> 
> I know *alt=""* was and is a "recommended and AT-supported technique" but it is 2014 now and the world has turned.
> 
> Regards
> Stefan
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cynthia Shelly [mailto:cyns@microsoft.com] 
> Sent: Mittwoch, 29. Januar 2014 02:32
> To: James Craig
> Cc: Bryan Garaventa; T.V Raman; jongund@illinois.edu; jason@jasonjgw.net; wai-xtech@w3.org; w3c-wai-pf@w3.org WAI-PFWG
> Subject: RE: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion
> 
> Hmmm....
> People don't like alt="" and may not like this for similar reasons.   
> 
> It can sometimes it can be difficult to teach, especially to people who don't really know the difference between null, empty string, none, blank and space.  There are many such people creating web content, though they are less likely to deal with aria than with alt.
> 
> Other than that issue, I've always been ok with alt="".  Does anyone recall why people dislike it?
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Craig [mailto:jcraig@apple.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 5:26 PM
> To: Cynthia Shelly
> Cc: Bryan Garaventa; T.V Raman; jongund@illinois.edu; jason@jasonjgw.net; wai-xtech@w3.org; w3c-wai-pf@w3.org WAI-PFWG
> Subject: Re: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion
> 
> What about role=""? An explicitly empty string for the role value could be a synonym for role="presentation"
> 
> On Jan 28, 2014, at 4:54 PM, Cynthia Shelly <cyns@microsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> > Some of other ideas...
> > 
> > Role=text
> 
> FWIW, text is already on the table as a 1.1 role. 
> 
> ISSUE-435: Consider role="text" to expose elements (and contents) as static text node
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/Group/track/issues/435
> 
> > Role=plaintext
> > Role=notag
> > Role=layout (nice for tables, less sure about other tags) Role=span
> > 
> > I kind of like role=span.  I think it will be really obvious to html devs what this does.  It will be a little goofy to devs moving from Windows and other native platform APIs to web, but I think the parallel to HTML will be fairly easy to explain to them.  
> > 
> > I'd use something else for decorative images.  
> > Maybe
> > Role=decoration
> > Role=deco
> > Or keep presentation for this use, as it's pretty similar and widely deployed.
> > 
> > That could be combined with alt/longdesc/aria-describedby etc. to be read on user request, or with aria-hidden to make it silent.
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bryan Garaventa [mailto:bryan.garaventa@whatsock.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 1:22 PM
> > To: T.V Raman; jongund@illinois.edu
> > Cc: jason@jasonjgw.net; wai-xtech@w3.org; w3c-wai-pf@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened 
> > PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 
> > 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion
> > 
> > I'm having trouble understanding how role="inline" would convey to a developer that the role would remove the tag from the accessibility tree without hiding or removing any child content. Especially since the role would be applicable to all elements.
> > 
> > The word 'inline' to me, or 'block', seems to imply that it turns block level elements into inline elements or the reverse, which would be an incorrect assumption for developers.
> > 
> > Am I missing something?
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
> > To: <jongund@illinois.edu>
> > Cc: <jason@jasonjgw.net>; <wai-xtech@w3.org>; <w3c-wai-pf@w3.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:54 AM
> > Subject: RE: Summarizing the contentious history of re-opened
> > PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 
> > 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion
> > 
> > 
> > Jon,
> > Borrowing block/inline from CSS  as role values is a good idea; an even better idea is to just mirror over CSS state into the accessibility side, i.e. make display:inline  create an implicit role="inline"  on the ARIA  side, rather than asking  authors to write both.
> > 
> > Gunderson, Jon R writes:
> >> Another idea is to borrow from the CSS concepts of "block" and "inline".
> >> 
> >> Role="block" and role="inline"
> >> 
> >> This would provide some semantics as to where the "text" content is part of something that stands on its own (e.g. block), versus part of something more (e.g. inline).
> >> 
> >> I know Cynthia Shelley and Rich have talked about concatenating text runs, and this would provide some way to give ATs a hint on how to do that and developers already have some idea what block and inline mean from CSS. 
> > I am not sure how they would interpret "none", just like the confusion over "presentation".
> >> 
> >> Jon
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Jason White [mailto:jason@jasonjgw.net]  > Sent: Monday, 
> >> January 27, 2014 6:12 PM  > To: wai-xtech@w3.org; w3c-wai-pf@w3.org 
> >> WAI-PFWG  > Subject: Re: Summarizing the contentious history of 
> >> re-opened
> > PFWG-ISSUE-348: Consider renaming (now actually 'deprecating' in ARIA 1.1) role="presentation" to avoid avoid author confusion  >  > James Craig <jcraig@apple.com> wrote:
> >>> Thanks for the feedback Suzanne. Whether or not "none" is the best  > > replacement is irrelevant. The confusion is not around images. It it  > > around the use of role="presentation" on other elements. For example:
> >>> 
> >>> The following marking: <h4 role="presentation">Foo</h4>  > >  > > is effectively the same as: <div>Foo</div>  > >  >  > Perhaps role="generic" would be more descriptive for the uninitiated.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Received on Thursday, 30 January 2014 08:57:32 UTC