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, Mon, 27 Jan 2014 14:04:03 -0800:
> 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.

I think you are dismissing the link to images too soon. I think the 
problem with role="presentation" *is* linked to img elements. 

Why? Because: role="presentation" has one effect on img elements. And 
another effect on other elements. This is because role=presentation has 
*one* effects on element that take their textual content from an 
*attribute* (like @alt for img and area elements), but another effect 
on elements that take their textual content from their - well - content.

The problem is that authors are not aware of this distinction. They 
instead look (pun not intended) at the effect of role=presentation on 
img elements, and assume that the effect will be the same on 'normal' 
elements too, even though normal elements do not take their textual 
content from attributes.

Therefore, if a change is due, I think it would be a better solution to 
leave role="presentation" for img elements (and other elements that 
take their textual content from attributes) as is and come up with a 
new value for elements that take their textual content from the child 
content.

Two name proposals. Either: role="div". Or: role="cancel". 

To pick role="div" would be to learn from the role="img", which seems 
to work - authors understand it, and I think chances are that they 
would understand role="div" as well. (The one problem I can sees is 
that it would lead some think of role="span" … since span and div is a 
”couple” - one being inline, the other being block, in CSS terms. Also, 
I don't know, right now: Do AT distinguish a span from a div, role 
wise? If yes, do we need two kind of presentation roles for normal 
elements?) One advantage of role="div" is that it would come quite 
naturally that it isn’t needed - and does not have any effect - on div 
elements.

To pick role="cancel" (or role="cancelled"?) should also be quite easy 
to understand since users/authors that have ever used English language 
software (and who haven’t) ought to understand its meaning. If I were 
to explain the effect of role="presentation" on normal elements, I 
would have said that it cancels their native role. 
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Friday, 31 January 2014 03:37:37 UTC