WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Seeking public feedback for W3C ARIA role=formlandmark mapping

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Apr 22, 2016 8:23AM

I agree.

I think there would be value to the user experience to treat a form like a landmark when it has an accessible name, but no value if the form has no accessible name.

I think there might be a couple of cases where treating any form as a landmark might either make the UI a bit more cumbersome to use or where the landmark adds no value.

First, there is the situation where a section with a landmark role may only contain a form. For example, it is not uncommon to see a site search that uses a form. If the site search is also contained inside a search landmark, it ends up being a bit pointless.

We also have situations where a page might contain multiple forms. Again, knowing that this part of the page contains some kind of form content probably helps the user very little.

However, if the user knows that this is the newsletter subscription form, the landmark becomes a whole lot more useful.

Honestly, I could see a lot of value in identifying a form as a landmark when it has an accessible name. It definitely could help on pages where there are multiple "forms" or on pages where we want to provide a more efficient way to navigate to an important form.

Thanks,
Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 6:58 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Seeking public feedback for W3C ARIA role=form landmark mapping

I'd propose to treat the form role the same way the region role is
treated, i.e. to expose it as a landmark only if it has an accessible
name.


On 4/19/16, Bryan Garaventa < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Currently form is already mapped as a subclass of landmark, this would
> simply bump them up in the accessibility API chain.
>
> Functionality changes would be noticed most readily using NVDA and Orca,
> which is why we are seeking public feedback as to whether this change is
> desirable.
>
>
>
> Bryan Garaventa
> Accessibility Fellow
> SSB BART Group, Inc.
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> 415.624.2709 (o)
> www.SSBBartGroup.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
> Of Schalk Neethling
> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 12:58 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Seeking public feedback for W3C ARIA role=form
> landmark mapping
>
> How are forms currently mapped? or are they not mapped at all?
>
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Bryan Garaventa <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> Currently the W3C ARIA Working Group is looking into a mapping change
>> for the 'form' role as documented at
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-wai-aria-1.1-20160317/#form
>>
>> At present, the form role is not mapped in the same manner as other
>> landmark roles within the accessibility APIs, which is why certain
>> landmark behaviors such as the ability to jump between landmark
>> regions and other such features are not automatically available with
>> forms.
>>
>> The current proposal is to remap form in the same manner as other
>> landmarks to enable this functionality in the future, which will
>> automatically apply to HTML form elements through their implicit role
>> mappings to the ARIA role=form API mapping.
>>
>> So the question for the public is, do people want forms to act in the
>> same manner as other landmarks?
>>
>> This feedback will be returned to the W3C ARIA WG for further
>> consideration of this proposal.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Bryan
>>
>>
>>
>> Bryan Garaventa
>> Accessibility Fellow
>> SSB BART Group, Inc.
>> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> 415.624.2709 (o)
>> www.SSBBartGroup.com
>>
>>
>> >> >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>> >>
>
>
>
> --
> Kind Regards,
> Schalk Neethling
> Senior Front-End Engineer
> Mozilla ::-::
> > > http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > > >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.