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Re: Value and prioritization of large-scale things awebsite can do for improved accessibility

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From: Dave Merrill
Date: Apr 18, 2013 8:12AM

It looks like I've been shut down on doing anything with ARIA for now, for
a combination of reasons. Semantic containers are in, again for a variety
of reasons; no doubt they'll be used with varying degrees of correctness
and accessibility.

Thanks very much to all for their thoughts and experiences, great community.


On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 1:54 AM, Bryan Garaventa <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I don't mean to sound hard about this; I'm sorry if what I've written
> before
> sounds this way.
>
> Literally every day, I see examples of how incorrectly implemented ARIA
> causes accessibility issues for screen reader users. I'm actually a huge
> supporter of ARIA, but there must be a systematic approach to implementing
> it, that involves a combination of both adherence to the widget types that
> it applies to, and screen reader testing to ensure that the implementation
> is properly supported.
>
> In the vast majority of cases where I see this breakdown occur, is when
> ARIA
> is perceived as a magic bullet, where adding the attributes is seen as a
> means for making things accessible. ARIA cannot 'make things accessible'
> however, and this is very important.
>
> With regard to interactive widgets for example, if the scripting doesn't
> exactly match the applied ARIA attributes, and the browser doesn't exactly
> support the ARIA implementation, or if the screen reader doesn't
> specifically support the implementation, the widget will not work as
> intended.
>
> Granted, support will increase in time. However if the ARIA implantation is
> coded incorrectly, it will likely never be properly supported.
>
> What I'm trying to say here, is that ARIA is not a fix-all, and it should
> not be liberally thrown into pages without a systematic approach to
> determine both current levels of support and practical accessibility at the
> same time.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bryan Garaventa" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 4:10 PM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Value and prioritization of large-scale things
> awebsite can do for improved accessibility
>
>
> >I did want to clarify one thing, it is possible, in JAWS 14 at least, to
> >use
> > aria-labelledby in combination with role="region" to surround an entire
> > content region with a label text that is present elsewhere on the page.
> >
> > However, this would not be good for extended content, such as a
> paragraph,
> > since this text would not only be announced at the beginning but also at
> > the
> > end of the content, and is only good for denoting the boundaries of a
> > given
> > region with label text.
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bryan Garaventa" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> > To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 1:08 PM
> > Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Value and prioritization of large-scale things a
> > website can do for improved accessibility
> >
> >
> >> 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
> >>>> >
> >>>> >