Re: CfC: Approve overview of testing in view of permissive CR exit criteria

On 6/13/13 9:56 PM, Paul Cotton wrote:
>
> This is a Call for Consensus (CfC) to approve the parts of the 
> following document that indicate which parts of the HTML5 
> specification can be considered interoperable as per the permissive CR 
> exit criteria [1].  The items subject to this CfC are marked 
> "Considered interoperable" and color coded in green in the document:
>
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tests-cr-exit.html
>
> Silence will be taken to mean there is no objection, but positive 
> responses are encouraged. Objections should be made to specific 
> entries in the document.  Objections of the form "features in 2.8.2.1 
> HTMLAllCollection are not currently interoperable" MUST be accompanied 
> with specific evidence of non-interoperability, otherwise such 
> objections will not be accepted by the Chairs.
>
The HTML Accessibility Task Force (TF) has prepared the following 
response based on analysis [1] of items marked as "Interoperable" in the 
HTML WG document "Overview of testing in view of CR exit" [2] to the 
extent possible in the time allotted for review .  It is the Task 
Force's belief that the items below should not be considered 
"Interoperable", exempting them from the formal testing effort required 
for the HTML5 specification to exit Candidate Recommendation [3].  We 
ask that the status of sections outlined below be changed from 
"Interoperable" to "Requires Testing".

2.5.6 Colors
Color is a critical component of accessibility.  While the parsing of 
color strings may not be a specific concern for accessibility, there was 
much discussion about color and the long standing dissatisfaction the 
Task Force and the Protocols and Formats Working group have with the 
deprecation of System Colors (see bug 13639 [4]).

2.5.10 Media Queries
The TF anticipates Media Queries to be used for accessibility purposes.  
Since media queries are a feature new to HTML5, we believe they should 
be tested to verify that they work as expected across different platforms.

3.2.3.2 The title attribute
The title attribute, while widely implemented, is not implemented in a 
consistent or accessible manner.  The HTML spec acknowledges this in a 
Note [5] contained at the beginning of the section.  The TF believes 
this attribute requires interoperability testing.

3.2.3.3 The lang and xml:lang attributes
Screen readers can use the lang attribute to perform language switching, 
allowing speech in the natural language specified.  Since this attribute 
can be used on any element, the TF believes testing is required to 
insure its value is available to user agents in all contexts.

3.2.5.2 Transparent content models
The "transparency" of an element depends on its context or usage. Most 
fallback content can be considered "transparent" as it inherits the 
context of its parent element.  The "re-mapping" of an element's content 
model must be properly conveyed in the DOM to insure that Assistive 
Technology (AT) can properly modify the element's behavior and provide 
the appropriate access to it.  As far as we are aware, there have not 
been any tests designed to verify this.

3.2.7.3 Strong Native Semantics
and
3.2.7.4 Implicit ARIA Semantics
The TF believes at least some of the implementation requirements in 
these sections are
either not interoperably implemented or require testing to demonstrate 
that they are.  For example:
* The h1-h6 elements are defined as requiring to have the aria- level 
property set to the element's outline depth [6].  The TF is unaware of 
appropriate implementation of this in any browser.
* The dialog element requires mapping to a dialog role [7]. The TF is 
unaware of appropriate implementation of this in any browser.
* The img element whose alt attribute's value is empty should have a 
default role=presentation [8] (removing it from the accessibility tree). 
The TF is unaware of appropriate implementation of this in any browser.
*NOTE: the current state of these sections has already been changed to 
"Needs testing" by the document's editor (Robin Berjon) based on 
discussions with Mark Sadecki on behalf of the TF*

4.8.14.2 Processing model
The TF has an issue with the spec text that makes an exception for how 
`<object>` elements are to be processed by user agents which do not 
support images [9].  The TF would like to see this issue resolved and 
the behavior tested in user agents as it affects the accessibility of 
imagemaps contained in `<object>` elements.

4.9.1.1 Techniques for describing tables
The TF identified poor support for the techniques described in this 
section [10] by Assistive Technology.

4.9.2 The caption element
The TF expressed concern about the removal of the summary attribute and 
its replacement, the caption element.  Implementations of the caption 
element are buggy (i.e. some mobile browsers will cut off captions that 
are longer than the width of the containing table.) We believe this new 
element requires testing.

4.10.8 The button element
The TF believes that while the button element has existed for quite some 
time and is widely considered to be interoperable, there are many new 
attributes available on this element that may have an impact on 
accessibility (autofocus, formnovalidate, etc.) and have not yet been 
individually tested.
*NOTE: the current state of this section has already been changed to 
"Needs testing" by the document's editor (Robin Berjon) based on 
discussions with Mark Sadecki*

4.12 Links
Given that links are a critical component of the web and that the 
ability to navigate to them with the keyboard in all appropriate 
contexts is critical to users of AT (i.e. when they are used in fallback 
content) the TF believes that the keyboard accessibility of links be 
tested, especially when used in the context of fallback content.

4.12.5 Link types
While link types have been considered widely interoperable, HTML5 now 
supports the the use of of link type on the `<a>` and `<area>` elements 
in addition to the `<link>` element. The TF believes testing is required 
to determine interoperability of this new feature of HTML5.

4.13.3 Tag clouds
The TF believes that testing is required of the example given to markup 
a tag cloud. The TF does not believe the `font-size` property is 
interoperable [11].  This is supported by the variety of "CSS Reset" 
methods available to developers [12], particularly if used in 
conjunction with a user override of min-font-size.

Kind Regards,

Mark Sadecki
On behalf of the HTML Accessibility Task Force

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/wiki/Results_of_Spec_Review
[2] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tests-cr-exit.html
[3] 
http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/public-permissive-exit-criteria.html
[4] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13639
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/dom.html#the-title-attribute
[6] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/sections.html#outline-depth
[7] 
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/interactive-elements.html#the-dialog-element
[8] 
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/embedded-content-0.html#the-img-element
[9] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13451
[10] http://www.davidmacd.com/test/details.html
[11] 
http://css-tricks.com/font-rendering-differences-firefox-vs-ie-vs-safari/
[12] http://www.cssreset.com/
>
> If there are no objections by Monday July 15, this resolution will carry.
>
> /paulc
>
> HTML WG co-chair
>
> [1] 
> http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/public-permissive-exit-criteria.html 
>
>
> Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
>
> 17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
>
> Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329
>


-- 

Mark Sadecki
Web Accessibility Engineer
World Wide Web Consortium, Web Accessibility Initiative
Telephone: +1.617.715.4017
Email: mark@w3.org
Web: http://w3.org/People/mark

Received on Tuesday, 16 July 2013 03:47:27 UTC