WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Relationship between WCAG and the ARIA in HTML specification

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Aug 6, 2023 5:14AM

ARIA fails that hide the role, state or value of an element should be
exposed as a violation of 4.1.2, I believe.
If the ARIA incorrectly overrides or exposes document structure or
labeling/description relationships you could fail it under 1.3.1, at
least if you can verify the fail. E.g. using the wrong heading level
with ARIA, or building an invalid list with ARIA.


In your example, the button role on the foo span hides the role of the
Bar Link from assistive technologies. The button role, just like the
<button> element strip away all semantics from its descendants and
only leave the text standing, see the presentational children section
of ARIA, somewhere in the roles section.

In other word the button role has effectively turned the link into a
focusable span .. if it is focusable, I'm not even sure.

This is one of the primary reasons I've always been dead set against
removing 4.1.1 from WCAG. I've made such comments on a few threads or
posts related to this decision, but I am too busy for lengthy academic
debates.

I just have to trust that those who made that decision, thought all
this through a lot more than I did.


On 8/3/23, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I am struggling to understand the relationship between WCAG and the ARIA in
> HTML specification at https://www.w3.org/TR/html-aria/. Do any
> non-conformances of this specification automatically result in
> non-conformance of any WCAG success criteria?
>
> I can see how adding inappropriate ARIA attributes to HTML elements could
> violate WCAG SC 4.1.2 and maybe some other success criteria. However, it's
> the non-normative section 5 (Allowed descendants of ARIA roles) that I've
> got a problem with.
>
> At the moment, invalid nesting such as <span role="button"
> tabindex="0">foo<a href="#">bar</a></span> violates the HTML specification
> and is a non-conformance of WCAG SC 4.1.1. However, SC 4.1.1 will be removed
> from WCAG 2.2.
>
> That code is also a non-conformance of the ARIA in HTML specification, but
> it doesn't appear to translate into a WCAG non-conformance because:
>
> a. It's not even normative under the ARIA in HTML specification.
> b. Even if it was normative, which WCAG success criterion would it violate?
>
> And before anyone says no one would write code like that, it's on a website
> I'm testing and it's actually quite common. I could probably say "just fix
> it", but I prefer to be able to explain exactly which WCAG success criterion
> is being violated and how.
>
> Regards,
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
> 020 3002 4176 (direct)
> 0800 612 2780 (switchboard)
> 07957 246 276 (mobile)
> 020 7692 5517 (fax)
> Skype: testpartners
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> www.testpartners.co.uk
>
> Connect to me on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegreen2
>
> > > > >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.