Visually, placeholder is certainly more like a value than a
name/description. However, arguably, it is semantically different to a
value in that it's more of a hint for the user as to what to enter
there. The reason for the name mapping was partially because it's a nice
fallback: having no label at all is probably an authoring error, so it's
reasonable to fall back to placeholder.
I think I originally supported the description idea, but on further
reflection, I'm not so sure this isn't going to cause problems. It just
occurred to me that if an author sets title or aria-describedby, that
will get mapped to description, thus killing the placeholder. So, we
definitely need to expose the placeholder attribute. However, once we
have that (plus AT support), we then always have to compare description
with placeholder "just in case", which is pretty ugly. Name is different
because while no name is probably authoring error, no description
certainly isn't.
In short, I'd like to propose that we:
1. Expose the placeholder attribute;
2. Keep the current behaviour of falling back to placeholder for name as
a last resort;
3. When 1) happens, expose explicit-name:false;
4. Don't ever fall back to placeholder for description.
Jamie
On 15/09/2016 2:38 AM, Alexander Surkov wrote:
Jamie, do you have objections?
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Brett Lewis <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi,
I have always thought of the placeholder more like a value for the
edit field rather than a name or description.
However, I think the important thing is that we have a mechanism
that allows assistive technology to “know” that the place holder
is present and what the value of the placeholder is.
Your suggestions accomplish that.
Brett
*Brett Lewis*
*VFO*| Software Engineer
11800 31^st Court North, St. Petersburg, FL 33716
*T*727-299-6270 <tel:727-299-6270>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
www.vfo-group.com <http://www.vfo-group.com>__
*From:*Alexander Surkov [mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>]
*Sent:* Tuesday, September 13, 2016 1:52 PM
*To:* Brett Lewis <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>; James Teh <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Cc:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [Accessibility-ia2] HTML placeholder attribute
Hi, Brett and all.
There's some discrepancy in the specs between UIA and IAccessible2
mappings. UIA column states [1] that HTML placeholder is mapped to
accessible name and description, while IAccessible2 column says
HTML placeholder has same mapping as aria-placeholder.
aria-placeholder is exposed it in AriaProperties [2] for UIA and
as object attribute for IAccessible2, the generic name computation
doesn't mention aria-placeholder [3].
Leaving aside the specs, in case of IAccessible2 Firefox does
similar things to UIA. Iirc we agreed [4] to expose placeholder as
name/description, because it requires zero adoption efforts from
AT, and since nobody claimed they need semantics of placeholder.
If semantics loss is crucial for you, then I think we could fix it
by exposing HTML placeholder this way:
* name and description as Firefox does (fix the spec to make it clear)
* expose placeholder object attribute
* do not expose explicit-name='true' object attribute if
placeholder was used as name
aria-placeholder may be left with the current mapping. How does it
sound?
[1] https://w3c.github.io/aria/html-aam/html-aam.html
<https://w3c.github.io/aria/html-aam/html-aam.html>
[2] http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/master/accname-aam/accname-aam.html
<http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/master/accname-aam/accname-aam.html>
[3] https://w3c.github.io/aria/accname-aam/accname-aam.html
<https://w3c.github.io/aria/accname-aam/accname-aam.html>
[4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=545817
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=545817>
On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Brett Lewis <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
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/
<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
<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
<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
<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 31^st Court North, St. Petersburg, FL 33716
*T*727-299-6270 <tel:727-299-6270>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
www.vfo-group.com <http://www.vfo-group.com>
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