WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: ARIA role=tree for mobile?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Aug 12, 2015 6:30PM

On 13/08/2015 00:13, <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:
> I'm specifying requirements for a mobile-only navigation that has
> more than one level. I know it should be coded as a nested unordered
> list. What I don't know if VoiceOver and TalkBack support aria
> role="tree" and role="treeitem."
>
> On an iPhone5, I was trying out this example, linked from the WAI
> page http://oaa-accessibility.org/examplep/treeview1/
>
> There was no indication of any structure or whether the tree was
> expanded or collapsed. Nor was there any indication when I was on the
> first or last item in a list, which I typically hear in an unordered
> list.
>
> It seems like the ARIA in this case got in the way of the list
> structure. My gut is not to use it for a mobile-only implementation.
>
> Would love thoughts from anyone who can chime in.

Once you move beyond basic ARIA, support is rather poor on in mobile
assistive technologies, and it's currently better to avoid most
composite widgets (and widgets whose role makes them components of these
composite widgets).

Beyond things not being announced, there are further issues with
following the (usually very keyboard-specific) design patterns for ARIA,
as they don't translate (badly or at all) to mobile assisitive
technologies using touchscreen gestures, and even paired keyboards. See
https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/60, which led to me adding this note
http://w3c.github.io/aria-in-html/#aria-touch and the very rough and
ready google doc where some of us tried to document this
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gN9oRZPdrJxLDNtT6nVO4fn7E7sn1061L9Xl3__slZ4/edit#gid=0

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke