Hi All:

I have been looking at how the HTML placeholder attribute is supported by IA2.

According to the HTML accessibility API mappings at: 
https://www.w3.org/TR/html-aam-1.0/

The placeholder in HTML should be handled just like the aria-placeholder.

According to the core api accessibility mappings 
http://w3c.github.io/aria/core-aam/core-aam.html

The aria-placeholder is mapped to an Ia2 object attribute of placeholder.

So, it sounds like the HTML placeholder should be mapped to an IA2 object 
attribute of placeholder.

Currently Firefox seems to support the placeholder as the name of the field if 
there is no other name provided by the page author (from 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=545817.

This seems to contradict the description of aria-placeholder from
the WAI-ARIA) 1.1 spec at 
http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/master/aria/aria.html#aria-placeholder
Says:

“[ARIA 1.1] Defines a short hint (a word or short phrase) intended to aid the 
user with data entry when the control has no value. A hint could be a sample 
value or a brief description of the expected format.

Authors should not use aria-placeholder
instead of a label as their purposes are different: The label indicates what 
kind of information is expected. The placeholder text is a hint about the
expected value. See related aria-labelledby and aria-label.

Authors should present this hint to the user by displaying the hint text at any 
time the control's value is the empty string. This includes cases where
the control first receives focus, and when users remove a previously-entered 
value.

NOTE

As is the case with the related HTML placeholder
attribute, use of placeholder text as a replacement for a displayed label can 
reduce the accessibility and usability of the control for a range of users
including older users and users with cognitive, mobility, fine motor skill or 
vision impairments. While the hint given by the control's label is shown
at all times, the short hint given in the placeholder attribute is only shown 
before the user enters a value. Furthermore, placeholder text may be mistaken 
for a pre-filled value, and as commonly implemented the default color of the 
placeholder text provides insufficient contrast and the lack of a separate 
visible label reduces the size of the hit region available for setting focus on 
the control.”


I am suggesting that we all agree to present the HTML placeholder just like the 
aria-placeholder using the IA2 object attribute of placeholder?
This provides the most flexibility for screenreaders to present the placeholder 
information anyway they see fit.  Using the placeholder as the name is not as 
flexible as the screenreader cannot distinguish between the placeholder and the 
label in this case.
What does everyone think?
Thanks,
Brett


Brett Lewis
VFO | Software Engineer
11800 31st Court North, St. Petersburg, FL 33716
T 727-299-6270
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
www.vfo-group.com<http://www.vfo-group.com>

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