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Thread: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Peter Krantz
Date: Tue, Apr 12 2011 1:27AM
Subject: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
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Hi!
Even though the WAI ARIA spec isn't finalized I can see many examples
of implementations (e.g. landmark roles) in the wild. Also, it seems
that a lot of assistive technology supports many of the WAI ARIA
features. What is the general consensus? Is it time to recommend use
of WAI ARIA in guidelines?
Regards,
Peter
From: Jared Smith
Date: Tue, Apr 12 2011 6:27AM
Subject: Re: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
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Implementing ARIA can only make something more accessible. If you add
ARIA to an existing site or web application, it will be exactly as
accessible or inaccessible in browsers and AT that don't support it as
it was before ARIA was added. But in software that does support it, it
can be made much more accessible (if implemented correctly). And there
are some complex web apps that cannot be made accessible without ARIA.
Short answer... use it now!
Slightly longer answer... use standard HTML accessibility everywhere
you can, then use ARIA to enhance that accessibility or to make things
accessible where HTML accessibility isn't sufficient.
Jared Smith
WebAIM
From: Donald Evans
Date: Tue, Apr 12 2011 8:06AM
Subject: Re: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
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I wonder about a case like the new ARIA widgets implementations.
See: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/profile/theofanis1999/
What happens in older browsers when they use one of these new widgets.
Do they still work?
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Jared Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Implementing ARIA can only make something more accessible. If you add
> ARIA to an existing site or web application, it will be exactly as
> accessible or inaccessible in browsers and AT that don't support it as
> it was before ARIA was added. But in software that does support it, it
> can be made much more accessible (if implemented correctly). And there
> are some complex web apps that cannot be made accessible without ARIA.
>
> Short answer... use it now!
>
> Slightly longer answer... use standard HTML accessibility everywhere
> you can, then use ARIA to enhance that accessibility or to make things
> accessible where HTML accessibility isn't sufficient.
>
> Jared Smith
> WebAIM
>
From: Dylan Barrell
Date: Tue, Apr 12 2011 12:27PM
Subject: Re: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
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I agree with Jared, there are a lot of ways that WAI-ARIA can be used
to enhance existing HTML to make it easier to use in an additive way.
A good example is aria-live. It can be used to do things that cannot
be done with any other technique.
Examples:
1) Announcing search suggestions
2) Politely announcing changes to a marquee
Without these, the content can still be accessible (e.g. the marquee
can have all its elements keyboard focusable, even when not visible)
but with them, the content is much more usable (at least when used in
the right way, if used in the wrong way they can be irritating too).
You can also start using things like role="presentation" on your
layout tables and then the AT no longer has to try to guess at what
type of table it is. If the AT does not support this yet, then the
role will be ignored. Same for purely presentational images.
It would be nice to try to catalogue all the additive ARIA uses...
--Dylan
From: chris chandler
Date: Tue, Apr 12 2011 12:39PM
Subject: Re: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
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I'm very interested in this aria (sorry, bad pun) -- at the risk of sounding
totally lazy, what articles/resources do people recommend for someone who
wants to go from very little knowledge now, but in the near future would
like to discuss in detail with a web developer why he or she should be using
WAI ARIA??
-cc
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Dylan Barrell < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >wrote:
> I agree with Jared, there are a lot of ways that WAI-ARIA can be used
> to enhance existing HTML to make it easier to use in an additive way.
>
> A good example is aria-live. It can be used to do things that cannot
> be done with any other technique.
>
> Examples:
>
> 1) Announcing search suggestions
> 2) Politely announcing changes to a marquee
>
> Without these, the content can still be accessible (e.g. the marquee
> can have all its elements keyboard focusable, even when not visible)
> but with them, the content is much more usable (at least when used in
> the right way, if used in the wrong way they can be irritating too).
>
> You can also start using things like role="presentation" on your
> layout tables and then the AT no longer has to try to guess at what
> type of table it is. If the AT does not support this yet, then the
> role will be ignored. Same for purely presentational images.
>
> It would be nice to try to catalogue all the additive ARIA uses...
>
> --Dylan
>
From: Patrick Burke
Date: Wed, Apr 13 2011 10:15AM
Subject: Re: WAI ARIA - recommendations?
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At 11:35 AM 4/12/2011, chris chandler wrote:
>I'm very interested in this aria (sorry, bad pun) -- at the risk of sounding
>totally lazy, what articles/resources do people recommend for someone who
>wants to go from very little knowledge now, but in the near future would
>like to discuss in detail with a web developer why he or she should be using
>WAI ARIA??
>
>-cc
>
>Hi Chris,
Many ARIA resources (intros, videos, tutorials, implementations) are
collected here:
http://wiki.codetalks.org/wiki/index.php/ARIA_Resources
It's just over 2 years old now, but I like Estelle Weyl's explanation:
<http://www.evotech.net/blog/2009/03/wai-aria-accessible-rich-internet-applications-basics/>;
From the W3C there is:
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/
And, last but not least, since we are here courtesy of WebAIM:
WebAIM: Accessibility of Rich Internet Applications
http://webaim.org/techniques/aria/
>That should get you going in the right direction.
Patrick
--
Patrick J. Burke
Coordinator
UCLA Disabilities &
Computing Program
Phone: 310 206-6004
E-mail: burke <at> ucla. edu
Department Contact: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =