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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 2:08PM

aria-labelledby cannot be used for this purpose.

E.G

<p aria-labelledby="anotherParagraph">
Content
</p>
<p id="anotherParagraph">
Some other content
</p>

ARIA should not be used all over the place just because it's ARIA, this will
introduce accessibility issues for screen reader users, especially when the
ARIA attributes being introduced are not being applied by those who aren't
familiar with the ARIA specification or with how these attributes effect
screen reader behavior.

E.G

<ul class="menu">
<li role="option">
Menu item one
</li>
<li role="option">
Menu item two
</li>
</ul>

This is an incorrect usage of ARIA that confuses screen reader feedback and
provides no value for screen reader users. Nevertheless I've seen this done
recently on enterprise software that is being pushed out to thousands of
businesses.

ARIA should not be used without a clear understanding of what is being used
and why.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Merrill" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Value and prioritization of large-scale things a web
site can do for improved accessibility


> Paul, is aria-labelledby a good way to say that the description for some
> static content is in some other container elsewhere?
>
> Here's what I'm thinking: Our software make a distinction between content
> contributors and template designers. Contributors are subject-matter
> experts and/or public-facing marketers, who quite likely don't know about
> ARIA, or even much HTML. My thought was that ARIA attributes, like
> container creation and choice of container element type, were in
> designer-land, not content-land. From that standpoint, it would be better
> if template designers could effectively say, "announce this using the
> content from that paragraph over there", which a contributor would write,
> rather than making the designer responsible for that labeling themselves.
>
> Am I being clear? Would aria-labelledby provide that indirection
> appropriately, for static content?
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 3:02 PM, Paul J. Adam < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Mark up your HTML5 sections with WAI-ARIA Landmark roles and give them an
>> aria-label, i.e. <nav role="navigation" aria-label="Navigation">. The
>> aria-label should be announced as the accessible name for that container.
>>
>> Don't limit ARIA to just dynamic content, role=button is great for faux
>> button elements, aria-required=true great for required fields.
>>
>> If you're planning for the future WAI-ARIA support will only grow and
>> become more consistent just like HTML5 and CSS3.
>>
>> Paul J. Adam
>> Accessibility Evangelist
>> www.deque.com
>>
>> On Apr 17, 2013, at 1:54 PM, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I think that landmarks are fine but ARIA is primarily intended for
>> dynamic content. There comes a point when adding more semantic markup
>> actually starts to reduce the accessibility because the 'noise' gets in
>> the
>> way of the content. I would therefore reserve the use of ARIA for dynamic
>> content, and even then only when it is actually needed. Some
>> well-designed
>> dynamic content does not need it.
>> >
>> > I think there is already an obvious implicit relationship between a
>> heading and its container, and that aria-labelledby is really intended
>> for
>> use where relationships are not obvious or implicit.
>> >
>> > Steve
>> >
>> >