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Re: Icon instead of text > open in new window

for

From: Jeremy Echols
Date: May 16, 2017 10:15AM

Very informative discussion for sure. I'm glad I'm not just crazy, but not so glad the specs are so difficult.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2017 6:18 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Icon instead of text > open in new window

True, the spec can use lots more work.
In fact, I am not even sure what alt=" " should translate to (to take an older example). Should it mark the image as presentational, or is it really assign an empty white space as the alt text for an image. I have dug around the specs and not seen a definitive answer.
There are series of other ARIA ambituities that are puzzling to people trying to use it. I will bring up some of those in my presentation on ID 24 on June 9th (ARIA 51).
Good discussion guys, I never claim infallibility. I believe it one of my better qualities in fact.
One thing to add re using an icon with an alt text (which is a perfectly valid technique, and in some ways a better one than the title attribute).
If you do, make sure the icon and its alt text are placed after the link text, else every link that opens in a new window will start with the words "opens in a new window.
It is not a WCAG violation per se, but it will make link text boring, wordy, and irritating for a screen reader user.



On 5/16/17, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> The whole set of documents/specs around accessible name and
>> accessible description are, to put it mildly, confusing and obtuse.
>> Lots of overlapping, cross-referencing separate docs
>
> Yes, and the language about concatenation can trip up some people as well.
> There are also a number of ambiguities that need to be cleared up.
> For example, what happens with aria-label="" (null) or an aria-label="
> " (a space or non-breakable space)? Is a space the accessible or name
> or does the algorithm consider that there is no valid aria-label and
> move on to the next step?
>
> There are also a number of edge cases around sub-tree and referenced
> content that is hidden with different techniques and don't forget to
> include pseudo content as well!
>
>> In the case of links, I'd recommend looking at
>> https://w3c.github.io/html-aam/#a-element
>
> I'd second this as a great resource.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group
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>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On
> Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke
> Sent: Monday, May 15, 2017 5:51 PM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Icon instead of text > open in new window
>
> The whole set of documents/specs around accessible name and accessible
> description are, to put it mildly, confusing and obtuse. Lots of
> overlapping, cross-referencing separate docs, with some very dense and
> confusing algorithm sections that aim for brevity but simply result in
> more questions than answers. (plus there's both editor's drafts and
> working drafts, mixed in with some outdated/deprecated/superseded ones).
>
> I've already vented about this https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/544
> ... feel free to add a voice of support / a +1 :)
>
> In the case of links, I'd recommend looking at
> https://w3c.github.io/html-aam/#a-element (the HTML specific guidance
> on how things should be mapped), as this splits out the name and
> description calculations into separate algorithms which are much
> clearer to parse for a reader. And if you look at "5.12.2 a Element
> Accessible Description Computation" the steps are much more
> straightforward (and support what was said on list earlier about title
> and how it should map to the accessible description, regardless of accessible name):
>
> "1, If the element has an aria-describedby attribute the accessible
> description is to be calculated using the algorithm defined in
> Accessible Name and Description: Computation and API Mappings 1.1.
> 2. Otherwise use the title attribute if it wasn't used as the
> accessible name 3. If none of the above yield a usable text string
> there is no accessible description"
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
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> >


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