W3C

– DRAFT –
ARIA WG

22 January 2026

Attendees

Present
aardrian, Adam_Page, CurtBellew, Daniel, dgrogan, filippo-zorzi, Francis_Storr, giacomo-petri, Jacques, katez, Matt_King, pkra, Rahim, sarah, scott, Siri, smockle
Regrets
-
Chair
-
Scribe
spectranaut

Meeting minutes

New PR Triage

<github-bot> I can't comment on that because it doesn't look like a github issue to me.

w3c/aria#2720

keithamus: I had an old PR, I updated it, also it's not on my fork, please review

jamesn: is it implemented yet?

keithamus: have implemented in firefox, not implemented in chrome

jamesn: needs reviews

keithamus: scott reviewed the prior PR

keithamus: updated in light of scotts commentary

scott: I assigned it myself covertly

Rahim: add me

clay: I'll review

pkra: me too

w3c/aria#2717

james: mappings for popover hint

keithamus: implemented and chrome, soon shipping in gecko, need a good review -- review is blocking!

scott: I'll review

keithamus: I need reviews from the non-engine side, I'm doing what chrome is doing, not sure its right. I want to know what people want from tooltips and these types of patterns

sarah: I will review

aardrian: I'll review too

jamesn: would be good to have someone from webkit

jcraig: fine you can put me

New Issue Triage

<github-bot> I can't comment on that because it doesn't look like a github issue to me.

w3c/html-aam#596

scott: rahim or I will take this

scott: going through PRs that haven't been merged, this is an outstanding request from rahim

scott: embed is similar to iframe

scott: use it to present graphics and an entire webpages other content. it works the same as iframe for naming

scott: doesn't need assing

w3c/aria#2715

pkra: I don't remember, assign it to me

w3c/aria#2709

jamesn: ok, so, would anyone like to investigate this? first stage is to work out whether this is supported across many platforms, accessibility APIs and maybe AT. Does this need expanding accessibility APIs?

jcraig: do we have anyone on the microsoft side that knows anything about excel?

jcraig: I can ask about numbers

spectranaut_: I'll look into the libreoffice side

jcraig: maybe reaching out to ben for the microsoft side....?

sarah: I can reach out to excel folks

sarah: my team works with office online... but maybe they know who works with native

jcraig: we want to know what is support on platforms specifically

jcraig: because we know it is not supported on the web

jamesn: I'll add agenda so we can bring it back

w3c/aria#2708

jamesn: there is a document, using ARIA, which is maintained by steve, its not within our working group. If you have ideas, share it in the issue, otherwise editors will make a decision

Daniel: we are trying to get steve's input too

w3c/svg-aam#40

jamesn: we talked about this in editors, the decision was to match reality of implementations

cyns: you can assign it to me

pkra: this a feature of svg 2

w3c/css-aam#16

jamesn: did we already talk about this....

jamesn: keithamus found the tests

jamesn: are there results of the tests...? that would be handy for this

pkra: there is an accname side of this. it isn't really mentioned in accname. it just talks about css content. the implementations do take it into account.

jcraig: css defines what the css content is, so it might not need an edit. the accname spec should point to the css spec, and the is definitive enough to write tests for it

pkra: i didn't see a lot of css content alternative tests

pkra: if you read accname you might miss it, could use a note

jamesn: accname references lots of spec

(I missed something james said)

Rahim: can we add a label....

jamesn: the issue is in CSS AAM

jamesn: personally, I think things like htisi should be in CSS AAM

jamesn: implementation details like this that impact accessibility are noted

pkra: I filled this for three reasons, one is that it is talking about aam side of things, two mentions CSS-AAM specifically, third is the accname part mentions speech

pkra: we should do something from our end is import to clarify what is going on when you use these things

aardrian: one nugget, this issue appears to be looking at three different documents. developers try to read and follow the accname spec. last week I had a convo about css carousels -- sometimes in the accname it is implied not clear

aardrian: the expectation is that accname covers any input that feeds into accname

pkra: so it covers css content but not alternatives

aardrian: right

pkra: it references css-2 which doesn't have alternatives

spectranaut_: I think we should agenda this

WPT Open PRs

<github-bot> I can't comment on that because it doesn't look like a github issue to me.

Deep Dive planning

<github-bot> I can't comment on that because it doesn't look like a github issue to me.

jamesn: none here, anyone want to propose....?

Webkit landed ARIA notifty and Gecko is implementing! \o/

jamesn: an fyi! yay!

<smockle> w3c/aria#2577

spectranaut_: there were questions from jamie teh and Jacques just answered, and Jacques will make one more update in response and we will land

smockle: but should we actually document that thing?

Matt_King: I think so

smockle: (explains why he thinks it should not be explicit)

keithamus: we have a warning in the dev console ....

jamesn: it should be valid for pages to fire it, it's jut not going to be delivered

keithamus: its an opp to educate users

jamesn: and you should be firing so many that that is a problem

Matt_King: we have a lot of useful notes in teh ARIA spec for authors, so whether or not it belongs in the spec is an editorial call. it is nice to have those, though

jamesn: I think this belongs in the spec

Jacques: so is this a note in the spec?

jamesn: I think it should be normative, maybe a should or should not

Jacques: sounds good to me

jamesn: I think it's best practice

Jacques: if someone is doing this.. they should be aware it won't get to the user...

jamesn: if it is in the background, the visual user won't get it

jamesn: what do folks thinks?

scott: I would agree it should be in the spec and a MUST, it would lead to problems with users if other pages are screaming at you

scott: I was thinking about (??) messages....

scott: (scribe missing)

<aardrian> status messages

scott: In APG examples, we will need to call out something related to this

<aardrian> specifically SC 4.1.3

jamesn: we need to help with specific technique for WCAG

scott: I know they will appreciate it

mcking: if it is a MUST NOT, is that eliminating a use case we are not thinking of by being to restrictive

jcraig: yeah, good job matt, that is what I was going to say

jcraig: there is some level of support for AriaNotify that can use existing notification mechanism, other things that might be adopted by screen readers and platforms, AT portions of AriaNotify. one of the things we discussed internally was exactly this, what are the usecase for whether you want to monitor, not a background tab, but background windw -- the window is rendered, a sighted user can see it, maybe someone wants to monitor it.

Front most tab or window. it would be premature to lock a limitation to the spec for the exact reasons -- leave flexible for implementers to handle annoyance factors

jcraig: voiceover has activities

jcraig: might be premature

<Matt_King> +1 for should not

jamesn: if we made it should not, allows browsers or AT or expose things in the future...?

jcraig: you are putting this change on the engine, I think the AT should make the decision

jcraig: putting the should not requirement on the engine, is more rigid and less flexible then allowing the AT to ignore things in certain contents. The engine can throw out notifications, the AT should decide what to communicate or pass or put in background log

jcraig: I think this should be a note, basically

jamesn: I want to confirm, the implementations today work the same as a live region implementation today, which doesn't fire notification on background tabs... so we are following the same, would that be a reasonable way of doing this

smockle: I was going to raise a similar clarification, inactive tabs vs inactive window, two browser windows tiled, wanting notifications from both

<smockle> WebKit/standards-positions#370 (comment)

smockle: secondly, everything said around allowing this to not be prescriptive, reminds me of webkit standard perspective

smockle: that different technologies can handle annoyance differently

<Zakim> Matt_King, you wanted to ask if talking about author req or UA req

smockle: and this is an opportunity for competitive innovation

Matt_King: I was confused by the beginning of the conversation... I haven't see the language ... are we talking about author or user agent requirement. If it is an authoring requirement, it should be a should not, if it is a UA requirement, that is different

jamesn: authors don't know whether tabs are in the background

jamesn: what should we do....?

<jcraig> The WebKit standards position reference that Clay mentioned: WebKit/standards-positions#370 (comment)

<jcraig> "concern-annoyance: misuse of this API may annoy or pester the user (a larger version of the same problem exists with Live Regions); browsers and/or assistive technologies should allow users to disallow usage by domain, but the spec should not be prescriptive about how this annoyance remediation is achieved. This is an opportunity for innovation and competitive differentiation."

Matt_King: we need to be consistent, that effects the AT, if each user agent is doing something different

scott: I actually changed my mind, I think really my concern about author guidance, should that be added here -- that people should know that it will be easier to use to communicate to users, it is easier to not know how info is being communicated by users. make sure people are careful where they can find such messages are coming from.

scott: I think we don't need a user agent requirement

Jacques: I'm not clear... I'm not sure I'm clear on what I think. I agree UA and ATs, they should have the ability to do the filtering they want to do. Authors should be aware filtering can happen. would a note saying useragents and AT can do this filtering for inactive or background tabes.

Jacques: authors need to be aware this can happen, no restrictions

jcraig agrees

Matt_King: saying AT "might" do this is clear enough to me

Matt_King: but the UA need to be doing the same thing with the same web page.

jamesn: (scribe missed)

smockle: do we define what UA should do for live regions?

jamesn: no

spectranaut_: I suggest we merge and do this in a follow up

Jacques: I'll make a follow up note

RESOLUTION: We will land AriaNotify and deal with the issue about what user agents should do with notifications from background tabs in a follow up, or what note to add to help authors understand filtering, in a follow up PR.

<jamesn> GitHub: w3c/aria#2577

Should :target-current pseudo class also imply aria-current=true on an active scroll marker?

Jacques: I added this for lucas

dgrogan: this came out of a blog post from sarah....

dgrogan: we implemented the suggestion, CSS wanted something firmer from the accessibility group

dgrogan: we think it is a good recommendation and it solves a real user problem

dgrogan: we'd like to hear agreement or just that no one objects

sarah: I was curious, there was discussion about different implicit roles, there has been talk about scroll markers having different mapped roles both on how they are used, or maybe adding something for authors to change what type of control the scroll marker would be, even those with role none, because aria-current is not valid on every possible role proposed for scroll markers.

Daniil: explains....... (scribe missed)

sarah: ok this doesn't exactly apply to what I'm talking about (????)

<Zakim> jcraig, you wanted to agree with using the same platform mapping, but to point out a potential problem with ARIA mapping conflicts re: 'strong native semantics'

jcraig: so what it currently says, the last paragraph, we should set aria-current=true, setting the dom or content attribute I don't really agree with, that would be a surprised to authors if those attributes change unexpectedly. the native implementation of target current should use the same platform mappings that aria-current uses. add an author note to not cross the streams, don't mix and match, aria has this concept called strong native semantics --

html wins over ARIA in some cases

jcraig: in this particular case, some is coming from pseudo class, dom, etc

jcraig: ultimately, there should be a mapping. maybe we will have a scenario where and author mixed the two... we probably want to do what the author wants

Daniil: just for styling....

jcraig: visiting links are just for styling, but those are communicated to AT

jcraig: this should NOT change any content attributes like aria-current

jamesn: no resolution yet, we need to discuss more next week

<jcraig> visiting links are just for styling, but those are communicated to AT/you said this is "just for styling" but many think :visited links are just for styling, but those are communicated to AT; so this can be the same in the native mapping/

Summary of resolutions

  1. We will land AriaNotify and deal with the issue about what user agents should do with notifications from background tabs in a follow up, or what note to add to help authors understand filtering, in a follow up PR.
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 248 (Mon Oct 27 20:04:16 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/me/I'll review/

Succeeded: s/notes/noted/

Succeeded: s/this should not change the content attributes/this should NOT change any content attributes like aria-current/

Succeeded: s/don't cross the streams,/add an author note to not cross the streams,/

Maybe present: clay, cyns, Daniil, james, jamesn, jcraig, keithamus, mcking, spectranaut_

All speakers: aardrian, clay, cyns, Daniel, Daniil, dgrogan, Jacques, james, jamesn, jcraig, keithamus, Matt_King, mcking, pkra, Rahim, sarah, scott, smockle, spectranaut_

Active on IRC: aardrian, Adam_Page, CurtBellew, Daniel, dgrogan, filippo-zorzi, Francis_Storr, giacomo-petri, Jacques, jamesn, jcraig, katez, Matt_King, pkra, Rahim, sarah, scott, Siri, smockle, spectranaut_