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Re: Testing philopsophy: opinions wanted

for

From: Katie Haritos-Shea
Date: Apr 26, 2014 9:14PM

GOOD question. I tend to agree with Jared. The potential for a hidden
element to be unhidden is likely at some point, and, in the case of
disabled elements, sometimes the visual user *sees* things (fields,
default text in disabled elements and fields) that some AT user might not.

But if auditing, and the answers to these kind of questions was simple and
clearcut(with just one obvious answer) - well - methinks we might all be
out of jobs.....:-)

* katie *

Katie Haritos-Shea @ GMAIL
On Apr 26, 2014 2:28 PM, "Denis Boudreau" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hey list, Karl,
>
> I hope I'm not over simplifying everything, but my take would be that if I
> can't make the invisible, or hidden stuff appear as I manipulate the
> content/objects in the page, chances are that users won't either. So I test
> everything that I can see or hear, and make sure I report everything that I
> find. If I can't figure out how to make the hidden or invisible content
> display at some point, I just move on. There's only so much time you can
> dedicate to a single page when you have to audit 100 more.
>
> Now agreed, there are elements in WCAG that I test, purely based on faith
> in the wisdom of the WCAG WG. SC 4.1.1 is one of those. Whether we think of
> duplicate attributes inside a single element or not providing closing tags
> for self closing elements for example, I could never demonstrate that such
> issues can indeed create real problems for end users. But because it's
> there, I look for it and report it. Based on that same faith, I trust that
> there can be potential issues with duplicate IDs because as the objects are
> called, I trust that only one object can have a specific name - but even
> for that, I have never actually experienced the damage in a real life
> situation.
>
> So I still think that we can safely assume that anything that cannot be
> "experienced" by the user isn't a problem. I wish I could be proven wrong,
> however. So if this could be demonstrated, enabling an option to test for
> hidden stuff would certainly bring value to the work that I do. Because
> ultimately, the only thing that matters is uncovering the road blocks, no
> matter how well hidden they are.
>
> /Denis
>
>
>
> On Apr 26, 2014, at 10:02 AM, Karl Groves < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> > Warning: Somewhat geeky stuff follows
> >
> > For a long time I've felt that anything in document source that cannot be
> > "experienced" by the user isn't a problem. Specifically what I mean is
> > stuff that has a CSS declaration of display: none. Because screen readers
> > ignore such content and because such content is made "invisible" to the
> > DOM, the content cannot be experienced, controls that would otherwise be
> > actionable, etc. are not and therefore users of other ATs like screen
> > magnifiers and voice dictation software cannot get to the content either.
> >
> > So, like a Koan: if the user can't get to the content, is it a problem?
> >
> > Turns out there might be an argument for testing such content. For those
> > who read multiple lists, I posted to PFWG and WAI-IG about an interesting
> > issue with hidden form labels. [1] The existence of duplicated use of the
> > same ID value within the hidden content - or aria-labelledby/
> > aria-describedby in the hidden content - seems to be the exception. Such
> > content *can* be experienced by the user and those IDs can, in some
> cases,
> > be referenced by ATs.
> >
> >
> > Here's what I'm wondering (in the context of automated testing):
> >
> > In general, should hidden content be tested? Before answering, I agree
> that
> > if/ when it comes into view it must be tested. But in its hidden state,
> is
> > it relevant to test?
> >
> > Or, should that testing only be limited to looking for specific things,
> > such as duplicate use of IDs, or external references to hidden IDs?
> >
> > What value would you find in the ability to enable an option to test the
> > hidden stuff?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 1 - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2014AprJun/0090.html
> > --
> >
> > Karl Groves
> > www.karlgroves.com
> > @karlgroves
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
> > Phone: +1 410.541.6829
> >
> > www.tenon.io
> >
> > What is this thing and what does it do?
> > http://vimeo.com/84970341
> >
> > http://lanyrd.com/profile/karlgroves/
> > > > > > >
> > > >