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Some HTML elements have no special ARIA semantics - neither a default role nor restrictions on allowed roles. While it can be inferred that this is true of any element not explicitly mentioned, it is helpful for implementors and reviewers of the spec to have an explicit list, if only to be confident that missing elements are supposed to be handled this way, and were not just overlooked. Elements in this category: a (not representing a hyperlink) abbr area (not representing a hyperlink) audio b base bdo blockquote br canvas caption cite code col colgroup command dd del dfn div dl dt em embed fieldset figcaption figure form h1-h6 (that are contained in an hgroup) head html iframe img (that does not have an empty alt) ins kbd keygen label legend li (that has no ul or ol parent) link (that does not represent a hyperlink) map mark math meta meter optgroup option p param pre q rp rt ruby samp script small source span strong style sub summary sup svg table tbody td tfoot thead time title var video wbr
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Accepted Change Description: see diff given below Rationale: I can see this would be useful. It's going to be a maintenance nightmare though.
Checked in as WHATWG revision r5363. Check-in comment: Add a note with the list of elements with no roles. Hopefully it is complete. Let me know if I missed anything. (Original list from Maciej.) http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=5362&to=5363
The intention of the (In reply to comment #0) > Some HTML elements have no special ARIA semantics - neither a default role nor > restrictions on allowed roles. While it can be inferred that this is true of > any element not explicitly mentioned, it is helpful for implementors and > reviewers of the spec to have an explicit list, if only to be confident that > missing elements are supposed to be handled this way, and were not just > overlooked. > > Elements in this category: <snip> > img (that does not have an empty alt) This is incorrect. Please remove the IMG with non-empty @alt from the list. The proposal from the A11Y TF is that an IMG element with an non-empty @alt should default to role="img". http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/misc/HTML5/aria-html5-proposal.html This can also be demonstrated with a look at how VoiceOver works with Webkit: Normally, VoiceOver reads the @alt attribute of an IMG. But when the <img> element has the @usemap attribute, then Webkit does not read teh @alt attribute. However, if you give an <img> element BOTH @usemap + @role="img", _then_ VoiceOver/Webkit reads the @alt attribute. That Webkit fails to read the @alt of an image map <img>, is a bug. However, the described behavior demonstrates that Webkit, by default, treats an <img> element as having role="img". The correct resolution is to say that <img> with a non-empty @alt should default to role="img" but that it may be set to any role.
I'm not sure about the editor's intention with regard to table it now occurs in two lists: (1) it is listed in the weak-aria roles table [1]: ]] table element grid role Role must be either grid or treegrid [[ [1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/content-models.html#tabl-aria-weak AND it appears below the mentioned table, amongst the list of elemetns for which there is not default role. ]] A number of elements in HTML have no default role and no restrictions on what roles can be applied to those elements: ..... table .... [[
Filed this bug on img with non-empty alt: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10485 This bug already exists on the issue of table being listed twice: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10465 Leif, I believe this covers the additional issues you raised, so re-closing this bug.
re-opening as editor has indicated (http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10603) he is going to remove the requested information.
Thanks. Once I've removed the list I'll mark this WONTFIX. It turned out to be a maintenance nightmare, and had too many inaccuracies to be useful. Furthermore, making it accurate would make it essentially unusable. The problem is that the roles don't just depend on the element names.
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Rejected Change Description: no spec change Rationale: see comment 7
added to HTML WG Issue http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/129
This is part of HTML-ISSUE-129. There is some debate taking place actively. Therefore bug triage sub-team thinks this is a HTML A11Y TF priority. Adding a11ytf keyword and assigning to Steve Faulkner for ARIA mapping sub-team.