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Re: using aria too much

for

From: Mallory
Date: Apr 13, 2019 3:02AM

Just because I activate a button doesn't mean I want my focus shoved to the resulting content. Remember this would happen to sighted keyboarders too, and I'm thinking of tab panels where aria-controls was recommended for tabs to their panels-- nope nope nope. Tab panels aren't always designed visually to look like tab panels, so how can I know when my focus will be ripped out from under me and when it won't? (this is a separate problem anyway and one we'll likely never solve.)

Another issue I run into with aria-controls is that it's supposed to not work on things not in the tree-- and I've seen more and more implementations in the wild where the controlled-thing you click to show is actually added to the DOM at that point-- and isn't there beforehand, or is display: none. It would work find in the event of a control *changing* some other content, and then allowing you to (at your leisure) move to that content.

I'll tell you where I see way too much aria. People are aria-labelling everything. Every damn thing. Sometimes they aria-label long paragraphs with a word or two, but luckily the lack of interactive roles prevents the aria-label from overriding, but it's also being done on links and buttons. It's either too much or too little:
button aria-label="click here to activate the menu toggle" (visible name: menu)
a href aria-label="Description" (visible name: a buttload of text including a professor name, their department, room number, contact info...) yes, too much text for a link name but the aria-label is worse.

cheers,
_mallory

On Fri, Apr 12, 2019, at 2:24 AM, David Engebretson Jr. wrote:
> Have you all seen aria used too much?
>
> I'd like to find a balance where aria is useful and where it is a hinderance
> to usability.
>
> Has anyone experienced too much aria while navigating a web page? I sure
> have... I'd enjoy hearing your stories.
>
> Aria-controls with JAWS has proven to be a booger as far as usability. Sure
> the ability to jump to the control with JAWSKey+alt+'m' puts virtual cursor
> focus on the element, but if the designer were to follow design patterns
> they would expect the user focus is automagically brought to the element in
> question. If focus is brought to the element already, why would we need
> the automagic reminder, "press JAWSKey+alt+'m' to move to the item"
> (paraphrasing)?
>
> Why can't focus be brought to the aria-controls without any need for
> reminder from the assistive technology we use? NVDA and Voiceover don't need
> keyboard interaction like JAWSKey+alt+'m' to offer a superior user
> experience...
>
> I might be missing something basic. I've disabled auto forms mode in JAWS to
> overcome most of the issues I find with aria-controls with JAWS. Have you
> found a better way to overcome usability issues with aria-controls and JAWS?
>
> Thanks for your thoughts,
> David
>
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