Re: [css-flexbox] Accessibility of Order

> From: fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>
> To: Bo J Campbell/Los Angeles/IBM@IBMUS, Bruce Lawson <brucel@opera.com>
> Cc: "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>, www-style list
<www-style@w3.org>
> Date: 01/20/2015 11:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [css-flexbox] Accessibility of Order
>
> On 01/20/2015 01:27 PM, Bo J Campbell wrote:
> >
> > By "inaccessible" I mean that it does not comply with WCAG
> accessibility standards and therefore cannot be released or sold to
> > entities that require a product to be "accessible" according to
> these standards. This is an enormous market (100's of millions
> > of dollars) and the standards keep the term "accessible" from
> being subjective.
> >
> > WCAG does allow the nav to be in front of the main content in this
> instance (simple holy grail layout) since the order can be
> > considered meaningless (debatable in my mind). A page order must
> follow the meaningful sequence. However, if Flexbox forces
> > the tab order to follow the DOM and not the updated Box Tree,
> developers are unable to do really creative things with Flexbox,
> > which is where the real power of Flexbox can be realized. Consider
> using flexbox to rearrange data items as they come into an
> > app, or for letting the user customize the order. In those cases
> where the sequence is meaningful, it would be powerful to
> > tell the UA that it's meaningful and have the tab follow the
> updated Box Tree like Mozilla is currently already doing.
>
> Our general position is that if the order is meaningful,
> it should be reflected in the DOM tree. That way everything
> operating on the document is working off the same ordering.
>
> ~fantasai
>

That is understood in this conversation but is unrealistic given the
opportunities that Flexbox provides to developers of rich internet
applications. This very simple layout example of the Holy Grail does not
show those opportunities and also sort of exploits the idea of meaningful
sequence in WCAG.

Bo