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Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)

From: Joseph Sherman
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 12:38PM
Subject: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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Should developers add ARIA roles to html5 elements with default roles, like nav, main, header(banner), footer(contentinfo)? My testing shows different treatment of the html5 elements between various browsers and AT combinations.


Joseph

From: Chaals McCathie Nevile
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 12:49PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 20:38:39 +0100, Joseph Sherman
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Should developers add ARIA roles to html5 elements with default roles,
> like nav, main, header(banner), footer(contentinfo)? My testing shows
> different treatment of the html5 elements between various browsers and
> AT combinations.

Do you mean that a given browser/AT combination treats the HTML element
differently from the way it treats that element if it also has the role
specified, or that different browser/AT combos treat elements differently,
or both?

Are your test results available?

cheers

Chaals

--
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

From: Marc Solomon
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 12:50PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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This fall back technique might prove useful for those using a screen reader and a web browser combo that doesn't support HTML 5. And, if the user has an AT/browser combo that does support HTML5, the redundant role provided by ARIA shouldn't impact the user experience. I suspect others on the list might have a different opinion and look forward to reading other people's thoughts.

Marc

From: Bourne, Sarah (ITD)
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 1:10PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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These two resources may help you figure out when you might need fall-backs:

WAI-ARIA Screen reader compatibility: Shows how different WAI-ARIA attributes behave in commonly used screen readers
http://www.powermapper.com/tests/screen-readers/aria/index.html

HTML5 accessibility: This site is a resource to provide information about which new HTML5 user interface features are accessibility supported in browsers, making them usable by people who rely upon assistive technology (AT) to use the web.
http://www.html5accessibility.com/


Sarah E. Bourne
Director of IT Accessibility, MassIT
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 1601 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.mass.gov/MassIT

From: Joseph Sherman
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 1:28PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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Sorry if I wasn't clear. I am seeing different browser/AT combinations treat pages with html5 elements differently. For example with FireFox, JAWS16, shows header="banner", while IE does not. Same with footer and other elements.


Joseph

From: Paul Adam
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 1:30PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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I always add the ARIA landmark roles for these reasons. VoiceOver does not support all the HTML5 section elements implicit roles in OS X and iOS.

Paul J. Adam
Accessibility Evangelist
www.deque.com

> On Nov 18, 2015, at 2:28 PM, Joseph Sherman < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Sorry if I wasn't clear. I am seeing different browser/AT combinations treat pages with html5 elements differently. For example with FireFox, JAWS16, shows header="banner", while IE does not. Same with footer and other elements.
>
>
> Joseph
>
>

From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 1:32PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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I agree, it never hurts to add the roles in addition to the semantic markup for the landmarks.

Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)

From: Léonie Watson
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2015 2:44PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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> From: WebAIM-Forum On Behalf Of Joseph Sherman
> Sent: 18 November 2015 19:39
> Should developers add ARIA roles to html5 elements with default roles, like
> nav, main, header(banner), footer(contentinfo)? My testing shows different
> treatment of the html5 elements between various browsers and AT
> combinations.

IE does not support the <main> element, and it does not have accessibility support for other elements that are native HTML counterparts to ARIA landmark roles. Firefox, Safari, and Chrome (plus other Blink based browsers) have accessibility support for these elements. You can find out which browsers have implimented and/or have accessibility support on html5accessibility.com.

Depending on how a screen reader obtains information from the browser, behaviour differs further. For example, Jaws obtains information directly from the DOM in IE and so it supports these landmark elements in spite of the fact that IE itself doesn't have accessibility support. NVDA on the other hand uses the platform accessibility APIs to obtain information from IE and so it doesn't support these landmark elements.

Whereas most current browsers implicitly support the mapping of ARIA landmark roles to HTML elements, older browsers and screen readers are less likely to. There was also a time when ARIA support was more advanced in both browsers and screen readers than HTML5 support. This too can influence the decision as to whether you need to apply landmark roles explicitly to their HTML element counterparts.

Léonie.

--
Senior accessibility engineer @LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Sat, Nov 21 2015 6:40PM
Subject: Re: html5 and ARIA landmark roles
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Also, keep in mind that if you intend to use an ARIA attribute on your
landmark role, you usually have to add the role, even if the html
element should be mapped to that role by the browser.
E.g. this code does not add an accessible name (in my testing, though limited):
<form aria-label="login">
..
</form>

But this adds the name
<form role="form" aria-label="Login">
...
</form>

Though not a landmark role, I see same problem when I try to apply an
aria-level to a h1 through h6 element
<h1 aria-level="2">This should be an h2 heading</h1>
..
it remains an h1.
But
<h1 role="heading" aria-level="2">This should be an h2 heading</h1>
works, it generally gets mapped to an h2.
This is reasonable in a sense .. maybe first you need to map an h1 tag
to a generic heading role before the aria-level tag can become
effective, but on the other hand specs say you should not use
role="heading" on an h1/h6 tag because they naturally map to that
role.
Cheers
-B


On 11/18/15, Léonie Watson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>> From: WebAIM-Forum On Behalf Of Joseph Sherman
>> Sent: 18 November 2015 19:39
>> Should developers add ARIA roles to html5 elements with default roles,
>> like
>> nav, main, header(banner), footer(contentinfo)? My testing shows different
>> treatment of the html5 elements between various browsers and AT
>> combinations.
>
> IE does not support the <main> element, and it does not have accessibility
> support for other elements that are native HTML counterparts to ARIA
> landmark roles. Firefox, Safari, and Chrome (plus other Blink based
> browsers) have accessibility support for these elements. You can find out
> which browsers have implimented and/or have accessibility support on
> html5accessibility.com.
>
> Depending on how a screen reader obtains information from the browser,
> behaviour differs further. For example, Jaws obtains information directly
> from the DOM in IE and so it supports these landmark elements in spite of
> the fact that IE itself doesn't have accessibility support. NVDA on the
> other hand uses the platform accessibility APIs to obtain information from
> IE and so it doesn't support these landmark elements.
>
> Whereas most current browsers implicitly support the mapping of ARIA
> landmark roles to HTML elements, older browsers and screen readers are less
> likely to. There was also a time when ARIA support was more advanced in both
> browsers and screen readers than HTML5 support. This too can influence the
> decision as to whether you need to apply landmark roles explicitly to their
> HTML element counterparts.
>
> Léonie.
>
> --
> Senior accessibility engineer @LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup
>
>
>
> > > > >


--
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