W3C

- DRAFT -

ARIA WG

06 Feb 2020

Attendees

Present
jamesn, Joanmarie_Diggs, MarkMccarthy, tzviya, Stefan_Schnabel, Scott, OHara, MichaelC, Irfan, carmacleod, Matt_King, harris, aaronlev
Regrets
JemmaKu, JonGunderson, Sina, Jemma
Chair
JamesNurthen
Scribe
pkra

Contents


+pkra

<tzviya> present=

<scribe> scribe: pkra

zakim next issue

sry

<jamesn> https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1192

jnurthen: 1192 => triage 1.3
... want to work out what we mean by that because I don't know.
... please comment on the issue.

<jamesn> https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1190

jnurthen: #1190 consider banning aria-hidden on some elements.
... triage => aria 1.3

<jamesn> https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1186

jnurthen: #1186 "what rules apply to description"
... triage => aria 1.3; assigned to scott

<jamesn> https://github.com/w3c/accname/issues/72

jnurthen: accname#72

carmacleod: sounds correct.

jnurthen: triage 1.2
... can skip on agenda.

[Consider allowing naming for any focusable element](https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1187)

mcking: if you make it focusable, the expected behavior from AT would be to announce the content. If you want it named, you make it part of the content
... but we didn't finish that conversation.

jnurthen: I think easy to close as "no, we don't want to do that".
... any other opinions.

Aaron: chrome exposes anything focusable so user does not get confused.
... we have other categories for when it gets a name.
... if it can receive a11y focus but not editable, not list item, etc

carmacleod: what about paragraph?

Aaron: if it's focusable, name from content

scott(?): seems like we have considerations.

Aaron: but not in the spec. We probably should.
... other examples: table, slider, spin-button. Usually widgets or container objects.
... then name from content.

mcking: sounds like you're correcting for author error.

Aaron: not trying to ignore the spec, just trying to make things work.

Scott: but we don't want to encourage people to do it.

mcking: we don't want to allow aria-label. Might be ok for UA to calculate something on author error.

jnurthen: where does hidden come into this?

mcking: that's the only time this comes up. If it's not hidden and it is focusable, then you wouldn't have to do it since screenreader would have access to the content.
... AT could decide to announce.

Aaron: might be other objects included from a11y tree.
... role=presentation but made focusable

mcking: but you don't need the name since the text is in the tree.

Aaron: you need it since AT will read name when you tab to it, not content.
... first rule, we don't exclude anything when it's focused.
... most cases, take it from content

mcking: downside: someone testing with AT and doesn't know what they're doing. They test using focus instead of cursor, get wrong result.

jnurthen: I don't think we can do anything else here. If they don't at least use a validator. They might do it for one but not all AT.

Aaron: it's hard to tell UA and AT to not fix things because users just need to get it done.

jnurthen: but in general our answer should be 'no'.

stefan: it's useful for, e.g., list items.
... it's useful to have focusable list items.
... users might be confronted with a very long string so aria-label might help.
... they can still arrow in. But abbreviated content in aria-label works as a real use case.

jnurthen: Right. Just not that currently list item doesn't have name prohibited.

stefan: so don't prohibit it.

jnurthen: I think we shouldn't but we need to discuss.

scott: we should add it to author error section. It's useful there.

jnurthen: any takers? Or separate issue for author errors.

mcking: just make a PR, work with Simon.

jnurthen: no takers :(

[Add comment role](https://github.com/w3c/aria/pull/1135)

jnurthen: "let's get this done"

mcking: I'm good with the intent. I think the language could be clearer, I left comments.
... the only slight change "many" to "multiple"

jnurthen: otherwise good as is?

mcking: yes.

jnurthen: leave it to Aaron.

Aaron: I'm sure it will be good. Will look asap.

[Add suggestion role](https://github.com/w3c/aria/pull/1134)

mcking: I'm not done with that one, I'm afraid.

<aaronlev> I just accepted Matt's suggestion for the role="comment" PR

[Consider prohibiting accessible name for listitem, rowgroup, term, time](https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1117)

jnurthen: lot of discussion.

scott: Agreement on time.
... rowgroup is open.

jnurthen: in APG we say "is not supported by AT"
... is that true?

mcking: I think it still falls into the discretionary bucket.
... I'd like to strongly discourage this.
... not sure if I agree with the utility statement.
... if it reads the aria-label instead of the content and leaves it to user to find out that there's more content, I think that's problematic.
... if the string is too long, it seems like a design issue.

carmacleod: jamie had another example, I think twitter. each list-item label was short to not include UI (reply, favs etc)

mcking: I feel that's an incorrect use of list-item.

jnurthen: but people are doing it and if we prohibit them, it will break.

mcking: ok but then practices can/should discourage it. We do that a lot of times.

jnurthen: yes.

Aaron: is tree-item the same?

jnurthen: this allow naming.

stefan: MS does it this way. It's not good style but even OSs are doing it.

jnurthen: term is prohibited (changed), list-items and row-group has use cases. should we change this issue to just the case of time?

mcking: I don't understand row-group. There's no way to surface the name unless focusable.
... but we don't do that in tree-grid.

scott: I've seen it in the wild. Not that I think that's good.

Aaron: aria-description might also come in.

scott: there was a bug with someone combining everything.

<Scott_O> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1568360

joanie: we solved that one by "name from content not allowed on row-group". But that's different from the issue.
... but I think we fixed that.

jnurthen: if someone happens to focus on row-group. Should it be nothing? Or allow author to name it?

<Zakim> joanie, you wanted to also mention ancestry of rows

joanie: another potential example: what if you have a giant table, say bus table, visually clear that a row-group has three sections.
... user down-arrows into a new group.
... orca and I think others will provide context (ancestry)
... "evening buses" and then present content.

mcking: but they don't provide the name on the row-group but the cell containing "evening schedule" a header cell and provide scope.

joanie: but it's not for the cell but for the row / series row.

Aaron: is it like role=group and fieldset?

joanie: yes.

tzviya: we have lots of such tables in Wiley books.
... top-level head might be the title
... but then sub-heads.
... e.g., accounting, profit/loss table.

grouping incredibly complicated.

scribe: it's very hard to get that right.

mcking: right just not sure if that helps in addition to existing techniques. I know it's difficult.
... if it were to help, then it should be put into HTML first.

jnurthen: by prohibiting, we're asking browsers to not expose it.

mcking: yes?

jnurthen: so we're breaking people who is using this and relying on it.

mcking: are we sure they can _rely_ on it?
... if there's a way to get this information exposed, I wouldn't know how that could be.

jnurthen: have you ever focused on one?

mcking: we could do a test with focusable. Might be better if it did break. Otherwise, you're not using the patterns the way the spec wanted you to.

scott: this is also in grids, tables etc.
... so we're back to disallowing naming.

mcking: what's the purpose of that?

scott: to select the whole row.
... in a complete author take-over situation.

mcking: but row isn't row-group.

jnurthen: can we do a PR for the ones we do agree on?
... we can still tackle others later.
... but move forward, making the spec better.

carmacleod: I'll do a PR for time.

[Consider deprecating all special live region roles except alert](https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1104)

mcking: I'm wondering if we shouldn't first talk about other aria-live issues.
... we can probably get rid of a few.
... but my concern is that these things in themselves do not provide much.
... not semantically useful.
... e.g., region named log are better in a practice than a log that has no utility for screenreader users.

Aaron: history: we didn't really know what we want to do live regions.
... polite came later.
... makes sense to get rid of marquee, timer.
... I think log might be useful.
... to know that the most recent stuff is on the bottom.

jnurthen: then we should write that into the role.

mcking: I'm not sure a role is the right way to achieve this goal.
... if you're exposing the log role, overwriting e.g., list semantics, then you're reducing accessibility.

jnurthen: that's an author error.
... validators would log an error.

scott: author should have div with role around list.

mcking: there was weak vs strong semantics discussion.

jnurthen: I think we shouldn't drop a role just because it's misused.

mcking: but what is the value?

jnurthen: e.g., Aaron's earlier point

Aaron: screenreader could start at the end. Would that be helpful.

mcking: not sure. don't know what AT devs would find useful.

Aaron: me neither. I haven't watched users encounter log content. I'm guessing lots to improve.

jnurthen: anyone disagree with deprecating marquee and timer?

various: +1

jnurthen: the only theoretical use I see is if screenreader had a feature for "ignore these regions until I ask you"
... for timer.

joanie: orca does this.
... allows the user to override author "creativity"

Aaron: I didn't want to get hooked on log. I just wanted to give AT devs to chime in before we axe it.

jnurthen: joanie do you care what role it is? or just aria-live?

joanie: aria-live.
... deprecating would be fine.

Aaron: historically, marquee came from MSAA having that.
... but let's kill it.

carmacleod: Sarah had a good comment.

<MarkMccarthy> From Sarah: "So far I'm not aware of any solutions using marquee nor have I recommended any, because the practical support isn't there. There is a need for some way of communicating regions with constantly updating information, though."

carmacleod: there's a wcag rule with example.

jnurthen: yes, those would need updating.

mcking: will make a PR.

[Should extension specs be allowed to override required owned elements with subclasses?](https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/1056)

joanie: we have to come up with a solution for dpub.
... maybe the group has (new) ideas.

jnurthen: I pursued the idea of changing the taxonomy.
... it's larg-ish task but not impossible.
... group and tree-item.
... are probably the main ones, group the biggest.
... we'd essentially need a different/abstract grouping role.
... but won't solve dpub problm.
... if people could look at last item (repeated content), please do.

Aaron: I think we need a high-level discussion rather than my PR.

rrs-agent, make minutes

Summary of Action Items

Summary of Resolutions

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Present: jamesn Joanmarie_Diggs MarkMccarthy tzviya Stefan_Schnabel Scott OHara MichaelC Irfan carmacleod Matt_King harris aaronlev
Regrets: JemmaKu JonGunderson Sina Jemma
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