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Re: Accessible Superfish-like drop-down menus?

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Jun 16, 2017 9:00AM

One thing that might be worth mentioning--that is easy to forget.

ARIA is really only intended to be used in situations where the technology doesn't already provide those features. Definitely, it would be great if there were a menu element that we could use for menus. That would need to be something added to the HTML 5 spec and implemented by user agents. So if we want those features, we definitely should be recommending those things to people involved with the HTML 5 specs and with user agents.

We only really use ARIA as a stop gap for situations where the technology itself (like HTML) doesn't provide that ability. Ok, maybe not always. We also use it when developers want to do things like create their own buttons--even though HTML does provide a way to create buttons. So maybe it is more accurate to say that we use ARIA when the developer wants to do something that doesn't appear to be supported by the technology (like HTML.)

Rob, I do have a question for you because I want to clarify my understanding of the problem. Is the complexity that is problematic due to trying to figure out what roles and states need to be applied and manipulated? Or is the complexity in writing the code that accomplishes that?

Thanks,
Tim