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Re: Is this a problem with ARIA implementation on authoring site or a problem with Jaws?

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From: DANIEL.KINNUNEN@dfps.state.tx.us
Date: Aug 3, 2011 4:39PM

Hi Birkir,

The link you provide points to a really good example of what not to do on a web page, for many reasons.

For your specific question, the problem you see is an authoring problem with the expandable text section. The expand/collapse control on the page is not using ARIA.

Visually, the control is an image of a plus sign when the section is collapsed, or a minus sign when the section is expanded. JavaScript is used to show or hide the section, and toggle the image from plus to minus. However, the script does not change the alt text for the image to indicate whether the section is currently expanded or collapsed. (The script could easily be changed to fix that problem.)

In theory, you could ARIA be used to provide the same indication. Of course, it would need to be toggled in the JavaScript also. And I have not seen great screen reader support yet for ARIA implementations of expandable sections, at least for examples I've seen. Maybe others have found better examples.

Dan Kinnunen

-----Original Message-----

Hello everyone

A shortcut question (I have not analyzed this code, I am coming up to
speed with ARIA specifications, but I am as curious as George).
The following page has an "expand/collapse" text link (Javascript I assume)
http://www.ncsu.edu/grad/tuition-residency/
I have also seen this elsewhere.
Expanding the text is no problem at all, but the problem is that Jaws
will not tell me whether said text is expanded or not i.e. the state
of the link is not announced.
Is this a lack of ARIA implementation or is this something that is
available, but Jaws does not pick up on?
Thanks
-Birkir


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