W3C

– DRAFT –
ARIA Authoring Practices Task Force

23 January 2024

Attendees

Present
Andrea_Cardona, arigilmore, Daniel, howard-e, Jem, jongund, jugglinmike, Matt_King, siri
Regrets
bryan, curt, mark
Chair
-
Scribe
Jemma, jugglinmike

Meeting minutes

<Jem> https://github.com/w3c/aria-practices/wiki/January-23%2C-2024-Agenda

<Jem> scribe:

<Jem> Scribe?

Site publication

Feed example PR 2775

<Jem> arigilmore: there are testing failure.

<Jem> Howard will look into these.

<Jem> there is flaky part for testing

<Jem> mck: I wonder whether Howard can look at it.

<Jem> howard: I have some thoughts on this and I can add comments

<Jem> mck: do you want me to raise the issue for this?

<Jem> ...wonder about how much logging is done

<Jem> ... we often have to run manually the testing

<Jem> howard: one is more flakier than others

<Jem> mck: it would be great if we can identify the pattern

<Jem> of testing problems.

<Jem> jon: I can do functional testing for feed example.

<Jem> arie: when I ran three times, it worked.

<arigilmore> https://github.com/w3c/aria-practices/actions/runs/7546522554?pr=2775 jobs run on the pr

Bug triage process

Define bug triage process · Issue #2906 · w3c/aria-practices

github: w3c/aria-practices#2906

Matt_King: On January 16, I listed 8 different sources of work

Matt_King: My goal in this issue is to identify certain areas of work where I think it's very possible for us to do better with the team that we have

Matt_King: ...and make it easier for everybody to help out in the ways that they can

Matt_King: For instance, wouldn't it be awesome if we had more people helping out with the process of triaging issue?

Matt_King: I think issues with the examples are the most common

Matt_King: I'd like to have a clearly-defined bug triage process that allows us to do it more efficiently and more asynchronously. That should free up time during these meetings

Matt_King: Ultimately, this issue will end up on a wiki page

Matt_King: Things we need to do: first, agree that the issue is a bug in the APG code (not in the browser or in the screen reader).

Matt_King: ...if we know that it's reproducible within our scope, we then need to assign a severity and a priority

Matt_King: ...with that information, we'll be able to easily create queries that surface the most important information for this group

Matt_King: I believe that verifying that the bug is reproducible and "in scope" is something someone can do outside of this meeting

Matt_King: Provided they can label and comment on the issue

Matt_King: From there, as a group, we can use the information that was collected and reported asynchronously to make decisions about prioritization

Jem: WCAG does something similar to this

Jem: I think it's a good idea

jugglinmike: it might be tough for non-developers to determine whether a bug is truly in the APG's application code (rather than a browser bug or a screen reader bug)

<Jem> +1 Daniel for pairing or partnership

Matt_King: I think we can document a fairly repeatable process for non-technical folks, at least for ruling out browser bugs (e.g. opening in multiple browsers)

dmontalvo: Maybe assigning two people of differing abilities to triage will be helpful

Matt_King: I've been thinking of adding a new label called "reproducible" and using that as a signal that this first step of the process is complete

<Jem> https://github.com/w3c/aria-practices/labels

Matt_King: This group could review bugs labeled "reproducible" and decide if they are dependent on assistive technologies (and close them with an appropriate label in that case)

jugglinmike: Sometimes triaging takes a fair amount of analysis to understand what the reporter is saying. We should document as part of this process that the person verifying may need to formally document their steps to reproduce

Matt_King: Good point!

Jem: Also, we need environment information (e.g. browser version, AT version, OS version, etc.), but reporters do not always provide them. The person performing the triage should also capture that if it isn't present

Matt_King: Great point!

Bug severity labels

Matt_King: At the end of last week's meeting, we had severity ratings of p1, p2, and p3

Matt_King: As I was thinking about this, I think we may want to use those labels to describe priority and separate priority from severity

Matt_King: Because, for instance, a medium-severity issue could be high priority or low priority depending on the popularity of the pattern(s) it effects

Andrea_Cardona: We also tracked data along two dimensions as you are proposing. We used the term "impact" instead of "severity." After a while, though, we found that it felt like a little too much information to track...

Andrea_Cardona: ...so we dropped down to only tracking priority

siri: I like the idea of making it clearer, especially relating to severity. I'm on board!

<Jem> can you hear me?

<Jem> yes to Matt;s answer

<Jem> s/Matt;s anwer/Matt's question.

Matt_King: Okay, then we will move from "p1", "p2", and "p3" to "sev1", "sev2", and "sev3"

Issue triage

Deprecation of the meter pattern

github: w3c/aria-practices#2905

Matt_King: We didn't deprecate, e.g. the button pattern, after it was added to HTML

Matt_King: Though we do have language which discourages its use

Matt_King: When we deprecated the collapsable list box, we marked it as "deprecated", we removed all internal links to it from other patterns, and we told people on the collapsable list box page, "use the select-only combobox, instead"

Matt_King: Wheras discouraging--on the "button" pattern, we only have language related to discouraging its use

Matt_King: I believe the right answer here is to discourage but not deprecate

Matt_King: Does anyone disagree?

[no response]

<Jem> no disagreement

<Jem> but the prospective for the answer can include the goal of ARIA.

<Jem> re: why we created this example

Matt_King: Hearing nothing, I will take ownership of this issue and report this decision

<Jem> https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/meter/

<Jem> https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/meter/examples/meter/

Matt_King: I actually don't see a warning on the "button pattern" page. And we don't have a warning on the "button example" page, either

Matt_King: Maybe we do on the "link" page, though. That's where this is more consequential

<dmontalvo> note: Authors are strongly encouraged to use a native host language link element, such as an HTML <A> element with an href attribute. As with other WAI-ARIA widget roles, applying the link role to an element will not cause browsers to enhance the element with standard link behaviors, such as navigation to the link target or context menu actions. When using the link role, providing these features of the element is the author's

<dmontalvo> responsibility.

<dmontalvo> That's the warning message in the link pattern

<Jem> https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/link/

<Jem> "note

<Jem> Authors are strongly encouraged to use a native host language link element, such as an HTML <A> element with an href attribute. As with other WAI-ARIA widget roles, applying the link role to an element will not cause browsers to enhance the element with standard link behaviors, such as navigation to the link target or context menu actions. When using the link role, providing these features of the element is the author's responsibility."

Matt_King: We have a note on the "link" page which "strongly encourage[s]" readers to use the native anchor element

Matt_King: Should we start sprinkling this kind of note in more of the patterns?

siri: I think the more general note about the purpose of ARIA (which the APG already has) is sufficient

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 221 (Fri Jul 21 14:01:30 2023 UTC).

Diagnostics

Failed: s/Matt;s anwer/Matt's question.

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Maybe present: dmontalvo

All speakers: Andrea_Cardona, dmontalvo, Jem, jugglinmike, Matt_King, siri

Active on IRC: arigilmore, dmontalvo, howard-e, Jem, jongund, jugglinmike, Matt_King, siri