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Re: Should references to non-existent IDs be called under WCAG success criterion 4.1.1?

for

From: Karl Groves
Date: Nov 10, 2014 8:47AM

IMO it depends on how the issue manifests itself to the user. 4.1.1
seems to be a little bit of a stretch, but then again I hardly map
anything to 4.1.1 except for pretty egregious parsing issues. I'd
always put it against whatever SC is more appropriate.

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:03 AM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Greetings
>
> WCAG SC 4.1.1 clearly states that duplicate IDs should be called under
> that vilation
>
> Usually they are causing issues that would also be called elsewhere,
> such as labels that are connected with more than one form field.
>
>
> What about references to non-existing IDs?
> I frequently see misused of aria-labelledby like this:
> <input aria-labelledby="Your phone number" type="number">
> In other words, people confuse aria-label and aria-labelledby.
> This raises 1.3.1 errors, but should it also be called under 4.1.1?
>
> Both types of issues are identified during html validation, just like
> a duplicate ID is.
> Missing and duplicate IDs can cause issues under a myriad of success
> criteria, especially with the existence of ARIA (aria-describedby,
> aria-labelledby, aria-controls, aria-owns all expect a valid ID
> string).
> Think about aria-describedby used to disambiguate link texts.
> <a href="#" aria-describedby="story">Read more</a>
> If all news stories on the page have id="story" assistive technologies
> will associate the first occurance of that text to all "read more"
> links.
> (and, yes, let us not go into programmatic context, this is just a
> convenient example, I am not saying it should always be called, far
> from it).
> What if aria-labelledby on an image points to duplicate IDs, same will happen.
>
> If, in either cas above, the id is missing.
> This means no additional labeling or associatd info is available as intended.
> Both could cause 2.4.4 an 1.1.1 vilations respectively.
> But the first one (duplicates) is also 4.1.1 violation, while it is
> not clear whether the second one (missing IDs) is.
>
> So, the question:
> Should missing IDs be included as examples of 4.1.1 violations?
> If not, what is our justification for treating those two differently?
> We need to make sure that these violations are clearly and
> consistently called, because they can be detected during automated
> testing and often are at fault for other WC violations.
>
> Cheers
> -Birkir
>
> --
> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
> > > --

Karl Groves
www.karlgroves.com
@karlgroves
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
Phone: +1 410.541.6829

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