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Re: Preceding headings and link context [wasWCAG 2.0: multiple buttons with the same name accessible]

for

From: Jason Kiss
Date: Nov 20, 2014 1:24PM

I don't mean to come across as a troll, since this issue was addressed
by the WAI more than a year ago, as is noted in the history of the
change regarding H80 that Andrew provided last August [1].

Still, I'd like to ask how that decision or the surrounding guidance
provided in the non-normative Understanding WCAG and Techniques for
WCAG documents disallow using the preceding heading for programmatic
link context in order to satisfy Success Criterion 2.4.4?

A little disclaimer: I openly admit to an intermittent frustration, if
not simple confusion, with a certain ambiguity I find in not only some
of the language used in the Sufficient Techniques and the
Understanding documents, but also how they are sometimes referred to,
intentionally or not, as if they established normative requirements as
opposed to just providing, albeit very useful, informative guidance.
Anyway, that's just my bugbear, but perhaps you can disabuse me. I
wouldn't mind <grin>.

Now the question: I might be misunderstanding the WCAG spec and its
definitions. Do Success Criterion 2.4.4 and the normative definitions
of programmatically determined (programmatically determinable) [2] and
programmatically determined link context [3] require that a link's
context be programmatically determinable without the user having to
move focus from the link, as is informatively suggested in
Understanding SC 2.4.4 [4]? Or do the Success Criterion and those
definitions only require that the link's context be available by
virtue of a programmatically determinable relationship, something that
a link's immediately preceding heading surely provides (even though it
may require that a user move focus away from the link to determine
that context)?

I'm not suggesting that relying on preceding headings to provide link
context delivers the most usable experience for screen reader users. I
know that it doesn't, given current levels of accessibility support
among those user agents. But, from the perspective of having to assess
a pass/fail against a specific normative requirement, doesn't a
preceding heading provide a programmatically determinable context for
a link?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding Success Criterion 2.4.4 on the whole?

By the way, I'm not suggesting that technique H80 be moved back to
Sufficient from Advisory. I'm comfortable that it remain Advisory.

Thanks for any help,

Jason


[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2014JulSep/0122.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#programmaticallydetermineddef
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#pdlinkcontextdef
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-refs.html





On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 6:45 AM, Jonathan Avila
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Isn't preceding heading no longer allowed for link purpose determination? Link purpose, button purpose same thing right?
>
> Yes, that is my understanding but it was also my understanding that SC 2.4.4 did not apply to buttons.
>
> Jonathan
>
>