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Using has-poppup to affect touch UIs

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From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Dec 13, 2013 2:54AM

I came across an interesting article from Microsoft about an approach they
are taking, "Using aria-haspopup to simulate hover on touch-enabled
devices":
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/jj152135%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

At first glance has-popup appears to be a useful indicator that touch
devices could use to trigger the hover-interaction first, and then a second
tap activates the control. It would appear to work from that point of view,
for things like menus which have on-hover states.

However, I know Bryan has done some testing which prompted him to say: "The
attribute aria-haspopup should only be used on triggering elements that
open menus. Otherwise, the presence of the attribute will only misrepresent
the popup type to screen reader users." (from http://whatsock.com/tsg/)

Does anyone foresee problems with this method, in terms of encouraging the
use of has-popup for non-accessibility reasons?

On the other hand, perhaps it will mean lots more sites will use has-popup,
at least somewhat appropriately...?

-Alastair