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Re: Using title attribute on non-anchor elements?

for

From: Brooks Newton
Date: May 2, 2016 2:11PM

Deborah,



I'm a big fan of your notion that WAI-ARIA functionality could be natively
made available in the browser. That brings up what seems like the obvious
missing key piece to truly ubiquitous accessible digital content
development, which is standardized support for rich internet applications at
the browser level. We already have a very well understood set of display
and interaction conventions associated with how browsers handle old school
HTML elements, such as radio buttons or links. I think we need a similar
standardized playbook where browsers manufacturers are required to abide by
a set list of display and interaction conventions that govern the user
experience for the most common <div> powered widgets, prevalent types of
dynamic content, and other advanced content constructs that are not
currently natively supported at the browser level.



Wouldn't it be great if a browser could do the "heavy lifting" involved with
making, let's say, a tab panel accessible? With some very basic markup in
place in the page source code, and maybe a little basic CSS, the browser
would know how to handle things like input focus management, switching a
tab's programmatic state and visible display, keystroke mapping, etc. in an
automatic and standardized way that all users would be able to quickly
understand and act upon.



Some might say it is a bit burdensome to require browser / user agent
manufactures, not to mention operating system and assistive technology
manufactures, to natively support access to modern digital content.



I don't it is too burdensome at all. Consider that we are currently asking,
actually requiring by law in many scenarios, individual site/app owners to
do the "heavy lifting" and to develop accessible modern digital interfaces
using what amounts to experimental poorly documented and erratically
supported combinations of JavaScript, CSS and ARIA. And in addition to
coming up with this coding wizardry on their own, content owners are
supposed to magically arrive at a commonly accepted set of implementation
standards (real code snippets) that will function consistently and
facilitate adoption by the browsing public? Give me a break!



Leaving the software manufacturers out of the accessibility responsibility
equation really isn't working out that well, in my honest opinion.



I think that our regulators, legislators and some industry thought leaders
have left the heavy lifting, in this particular case, to the wrong team.
The centralized position of the software manufactures influence on
accessibility, not to mention their economies of scale, makes them the right
folks to drive this type of standardization of how rich content is handled,
which will in turn raise energetic support in the accessible content
development community and ultimately, will lead to widespread user
acceptance.



So, let's all get together some weekend, order some pizza and come up with
a top 50 modern design patterns (I pick modals, what would you pick?),
figure out a standardized way to accessibly code these chunks of content so
that the OS/browser/AT chain will render the information in a way that
facilitates functionality for users of all abilities? Wait a second, maybe
that's not so good for job security as an accessibility specialist. That
would make accessibility too easy. Never mind.



Brooks Newton

Independent Digital Accessibility Consultant