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Re: aria-labelledby vs aria-activedescendant

for

From: Ney André de Mello Zunino
Date: Aug 22, 2011 7:00AM

On 10/08/2011 09:05, Ney André de Mello Zunino wrote:
> I'm having trouble getting a simple menu widget to be properly
> labelled (/aria-labelledby/) when using /aria-activedescendant/ to
> manage focus. When the widget receives focus, its label is not read;
> only the active menu item given by /aria-activedescendant/ is. This
> behavior seems misleading and lacking in the sense of providing a
> blind user with context.
>
> Illustrative example:
>
> <h2 id="menu-label">Colors Menu</h2>
>
> <ul id="colors-menu" role="menu" tabindex="0"
> aria-activedescendant="color1"
> aria-labelledby="menu-label">
> <li id="color1" role="menuitem">Green</li>
> <li id="color2" role="menuitem">Yellow</li>
> <li id="color3" role="menuitem">Blue</li>
> </ul>
>
> In the example above, when the menu receives focus, its label "Colors
> Menu" is not read. Instead, only the active item "Green" is. I
> expected the menu label to be announced prior to the item itself.
>
> Has anybody got any info or experience with a situation like this?
>
> Browser: Firefox 5
> AT: JAWS 11

I'll try bumping this thread as I've yet to find a solution to the issue
presented in my original message from Aug. 10th. I believe it's a simple
case of me failing to do something elementary and so I'm hoping someone
who knows better might be able to advise me.

The case in point: when an ARIA menu widget receives focus, the screen
reader should first read its label or description (given by
aria-labelledby or aria-describedby, respectively) and only then inform
the user about the currently active subitem (given by
aria-activedescendant). I've done some tests and it seems very
misleading to a blind user that when focus is set on the menu widget,
only the menu item is read. He/she might not even be sure that that is a
menu item.

Thanks again,

--
Ney André de Mello Zunino
Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento
Softplan/Poligraph
Sistema da Qualidade Certificado ISO9001:2008
Fone/Fax: 0xx(48) 3027-8000
http://www.softplan.com.br/