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Re: Value and prioritization of large-scale things a web site can do for improved accessibility

for

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Apr 17, 2013 12:25PM

I should qualify that by saying, two static elements that are not
interactive ARIA widgets or active elements.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Garaventa" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Value and prioritization of large-scale things a web
site can do for improved accessibility


> One thing to be aware of, ARIA such as aria-labelledby cannot be used to
> link two static elements. Nothing will be announced to screen reader users
> during navigation.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dave Merrill" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 10:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Value and prioritization of large-scale things a web
> site can do for improved accessibility
>
>
>> Steve, thanks very much for taking the time to weigh in here, I
>> appreciate
>> it, very useful feedback.
>>
>> Re other ARIA markup, if you have a heading as the first item inside a
>> semantic container, is there any point to linking the two explicitly
>> with aria-labelledby
>> on the container pointing to the heading?
>>
>> The most recent screen reader users survey shows one real-world
>> perspective:
>> - Headings are by far the most used in-page navigation
>> - Most reader users are now aware or ARIA landmarks but usage frequency
>> is
>> quite varied
>> - The most-reported accessibility blockers are inaccessible Flash and
>> CAPTCHA, not information discovery
>>
>> That survey is here (which I'm sure you all know):
>> http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 12:51 PM, Steve Green <
>> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>
>>> To take your points in order, my opinion would be:
>>>
>>> 1. Yes, use HTML5 semantic elements. That is already useful and will
>>> become increasingly so.
>>> 2. ARIA landmark roles can be useful so they are worth adding.
>>> 3. Other ARIA markup is likely to be less useful, especially in generic
>>> templates. Given that there is a cost to everything, I see this as a low
>>> priority.
>>> 4. Title attributes on links only add value if they are different from
>>> the
>>> anchor text and provide necessary additional information. That is rarely
>>> going to be the case in templates. Unnecessary tooltips have an adverse
>>> effect on some users, so that has to be balanced against the benefit of
>>> providing them. This is one of many cases where an accessibility feature
>>> is
>>> not necessarily either beneficial or neutral.
>>> 5. Set the title attribute for content containers would be a definite No
>>> for me. It would particularly impact screen magnifier users because the
>>> tooltips are proportionately larger than usual and a tooltip would
>>> always
>>> be present no matter where the mouse is moved.
>>>
>>> Steve Green
>>> Managing Director
>>> Test Partners Ltd
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto:
>>> <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Dave Merrill
>>> Sent: 17 April 2013 16:55
>>> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>> Subject: [WebAIM] Value and prioritization of large-scale things a web
>>> site can do for improved accessibility
>>>
>>> Hi folks, first post, hope it's not unwelcome-ly long or obvious. By way
>>> of intro, I'm a developer at a web software company, not an
>>> accessibility
>>> expert. I've recently gotten interested in accessibility, and if there
>>> are
>>> things we can do to improve access, without a lot of complexity either
>>> for
>>> us to build or for our users to user, I may be able to get some of that
>>> in.
>>>
>>> By "large-scale", I mean page structure changes that can be done on the
>>> site's main templates, rather than hand-tweaked changes to each page.
>>> For
>>> example, the one step of applying ARIA landmark roles is in reach for
>>> many
>>> sites, just by updating their blog or content management software
>>> templates. Doing the whole nine yards to annotate every widget's
>>> interaction state is much harder, unless the underlying platform already
>>> does it.
>>>
>>> Here are some possible steps a site could take, that are all relatively
>>> low-hanging fruit:
>>>
>>> - Place all content within HTML5 semantic container tags, specifically
>>> article, aside ,nav, section, figure, figcaption, footer, header, and
>>> main
>>> - Assign ARIA landmark roles to content containers and HTML headings
>>> - Assign aria-label, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby attributes to
>>> appropriate content containers
>>> - Set the title attribute on links
>>> - Set the title attribute for content containers (less desirable, since
>>> it's seen by all, and containers aren't typically labelled this way)
>>>
>>> Which of those would you say are worth doing? Taken together, would they
>>> make a real difference in accessibility? Are there other simple things
>>> that
>>> could be done, ideally the page template level, rather than specific
>>> hand
>>> tweaks for every page?
>>>
>>> (I'm specifically not talking about forms or interactivity, that's a
>>> whole
>>> other topic. I'm also not talking about making sure HTML and image
>>> colors
>>> have good contrast, not because it's unimportant, but because it has to
>>> be
>>> done on a case-by-case basic, rather than in global templates.)
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
>>>
>>> Dave Merrill
>>> >>> >>> messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>> >>> >>> >>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dave Merrill
>> >> >> >