ARIA and the user's rôle

Rick,

I changed the topic, so as not to interfere with the other topic thread

it might also be helpful, if you told me a little more about yourself...

in the meantime:

it's true as they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so  
one does need to be careful when assessing the contributions from  
naive persons. However it is possible.

it's also possible to author without having traditional literacy  
skills, just as it's also possible to draw without representation.  
This introduction might be helpful:
http://danbri.org/words/2007/09/14/199

regards

Jonathan Chetwynd
Accessibility Consultant on Media Literacy and the Internet



On 10 Oct 2007, at 13:24, Rick wrote:

On 10/10/07, "~:'' ありがとうございました。"  
<j.chetwynd@btinternet.com> wrote:
>  as I previously mentioned it appears that there has been no  
> response from
> any naive users.

What does that mean?  Jonathan, I have much difficulty sorting out
what it is that you are talking about.  Maybe it's because I'm a geek,
and therefore naive, but I've read back through some of your emails
and I see phrases like 'the pre-literate author when composing' which
I don't understand.  How can you be an author if you are illiterate?
( I'm naively assuming that pre-literate is PC for illiterate, but
could learn someday. )

I don't understand why you would ask anyone about a topic when they
are considered naive.  You would have to educate them first, and in
doing so doubtless they would borrow your opinions for quite a while
before forming their own.

I'm obviously missing some broad concept here.

>
> It's my opinion, already expressed that this change has not been  
> presented
> in a means presentable to such an audience.
>
> I am for instance not able to ask non-expert audiences for their  
> opinion to
> feed back into discussions.
>
> I do not consider it sufficient that the WG is excited by this  
> possibility.
>
> Rather than imagining the pros and cons.
> Please take the opportunity to ask.
>
> regards
>
>
> Jonathan Chetwynd
> Accessibility Consultant on Media Literacy and the Internet
>
>
>
>
>
> On 10 Oct 2007, at 01:59, Doug Schepers wrote:
>
> Hi, SVG community-
>
> The SVG WG likes the functionality and extensibility that the 'role
> attribute affords, and the potential for increased accessibility,  
> so we do
> want to include it in SVG (and to see it implemented as soon as  
> possible, so
> authors can use it right away).  We've talked about how best to do  
> so, and
> we'd like to solicit opinions from interested parties, including  
> the other
> Working Groups involved, implementors, and authors.
>
> To summarize the options, we can include the 'role' attribute in  
> the XHTML
> namespace, or as a native null-namespace attribute.  Each approach has
> benefits and problems.
>
> 1) XHTML Namespace
> <svg
>   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
>   xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
>   xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
>   xmlns:aaa="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa">
>   <g xhtml:role="checkbox" aaa:checked="true">...</g>
> </svg>
>
> Pros:
> * does not require any changes to SVG syntax... automatically  
> available via
> XML's innate extensibility mechanism
> * conforms to current version of the Role spec [1]
>
> Cons:
> * is slightly harder to author (requires working knowledge of  
> namespaces, or
> good voodoo skills)
> * differs in syntax from how it would work in XHTML and HTML5 (so  
> may be
> harder to learn, and possibly to implement)
> * more verbose
>
>
> 2) Native Non-Namespaced Attribute
> <svg
>   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
>   xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
>   xmlns:aaa="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa">
>   <g role="checkbox" aaa:checked="true">...</g>
> </svg>
>
>
> Pros:
> * more similar in syntax to XHTML and HTML5 (easier to use and maybe
> implement)
> * less verbose
> * maybe less error-prone for authoring, mash-ups, compound documents
>
> Cons:
> * would require a change to SVG (see details below)
> * would require change to Role spec to allow "host language" (SVG) to
> incorporate it into its own language (note that there is precedent  
> for this
> in the previous version of the Role spec [2], not sure why it was  
> changed)
>
> Neutral:
> * still requires knowledge of namespaces, but only for including ARIA
>
>
> Changes Required to SVG Specifications
>
> As mentioned, including 'role' via the XHTML namespace requires no  
> changes
> to SVG (though would benefit from a Note on the details), but I  
> understand
> that some might not find it the cleanest or most author-friendly  
> solution.
> So, the SVG WG is open to include it directly in the SVG language,  
> if that's
> the solution the community feels is best (and if it is allowed by  
> the Role
> spec).
>
> If we are to include it in the language, just how we do so depends  
> on which
> version of SVG.  We can't add it as a feature to SVG 1.1 or before  
> (adding
> features that change conformance to a past version is not allowed  
> in the W3C
> Process), but we could do so for SVG 1.2 Full with few or no problems.
> There is a chance we could do it for SVG 1.2 Tiny, because it's not  
> yet in
> PR, but adding features at this late stage might not sit well with the
> standards community (though the implementors on the WG assure us  
> that merely
> adding an attribute is trivial).  We would like to do it, but not  
> if it's
> seen as unacceptable by the standards community.
>
> Another factor is that we don't want to be dependent upon the Role  
> Attribute
>  and the CURIE specs for our Rec-Track exit criteria.  But neither  
> do we
> want to specify it separately (or differently) than that spec.  A  
> possible
> solution is that, for SVG 1.2 Tiny, we would include it as an  
> attribute
> whose value is a space-separated list of strings, and when the Role  
> and
> CURIE specs are more mature, in the SVG 1.2 Full timeframe, we  
> would change
> the specification of 'role' to refer to those specs.  This is not a  
> very
> clean solution, but it would get the 'role' attribute out there,  
> and let
> authors create content now in as easy a manner as possible.
>
>
> Changes Required to Role Attribute Specification
>
> As mentioned before, for this to happen, the Role Attribute spec  
> would need
> to explicitly allow SVG to do it.  We'd like feedback from the  
> XHTML2 WG on
> this.  It would be ideal, perhaps, if the Role spec optionally  
> allowed the
> values to be strings instead of CURIEs (as specified in a host  
> language),
> but that may be a bridge too far.
>
>
> Prompt feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-role/
> [2]
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml-role-20060725/#docconf
>
> Regards-
> -Doug Schepers
> W3C Staff Contact, SVG, CDF, and WebAPI
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Cheers!
Rick