[WSG] Re: ARIA
What about browsers that don't support ARIA markup? Graceful degradation (if the page is well written). Or progressive enhancement. Some references: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/javascript#access A good intro to WAI ARIA by Gez Lemon: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introduction-to-wai-aria/ Best Regards, Laura ___ Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: ARIA
Progressive enhancement and accessibility. Hmmm. I am not sure about this, I thought accessibility was about providing access to websites from all angles, not progressivly enhancing access to users with more up to date technology or browsers. Would it not be better to include ARIA markup in HTML5 rather than trying to adapt it to the current version of HTML? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of ARIA. It just seems like another quick fix to plug the current problems. I can't imagine ARIA markup being used all that much anyway (I will use it, but I am talking about the majority of other developers). One of the reasons is because the majority of poor developers out there cannot be bothered to learn anything new and don't give a hoot about accessibility. The state of the web at the moment in terms of accessibility is poor anyway. I was speaking with a top PHP developer not so long back. He works for a company and is on serious money, and even he little idea about accessibility on the web. I think before we start implementing new ideas we need to inform the the current and the up and coming developers about accessibility. Its not my place to say what should and what shouldn't happen on the web, these are just my views. It kind of reminds me of microformats. A brilliant idea but underused by developers. I am just going to carry on learning, and hope that the ARIA reaches its goals and targets and doesn't get brushed under the carpet. James On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Laura Carlson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What about browsers that don't support ARIA markup? Graceful degradation (if the page is well written). Or progressive enhancement. Some references: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/javascript#access A good intro to WAI ARIA by Gez Lemon: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introduction-to-wai-aria/ Best Regards, Laura ___ Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] Re: ARIA
Progressive enhancement and accessibility. Hmmm. I am not sure about this There's a slight difference between progressive enhancement techniques and graceful degradation. Graceful degradation, tends to be that you try to do everything with the scripting and fall back if you can, whereas progressive enhancement means that you start just assuming that scripting is not available and add. It is geared towards the lowest common denominator. Best Regards, Laura ___ Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: ARIA
On 10 Aug 2008, at 11:53, James Jeffery wrote: Progressive enhancement and accessibility. Hmmm. I am not sure about this, I thought accessibility was about providing access to websites from all angles, not progressivly enhancing access to users with more up to date technology or browsers. Would it not be better to include ARIA markup in HTML5 rather than trying to adapt it to the current version of HTML? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of ARIA. In an ideal world yes, but HTML5 is years away, and not ready for authors to start using in the wild yet. HTML4 and XHTML1 are the here and now. WAI_ARIA was retrofitted from XHTML2 (I believe) to HTML so that it could be used right away. All major browser vendors support it now, once IE8 comes out. That means people with disabilities will start seeing the benefits now, instead of many years down the line. I'm not on the HTML5 group or follow it as closely as I'd like, but I don't see too many reasons why many of the roles used in WAI-ARIA wont be added as elements in HTML5, or at least WAI-ARIA becoming part of that spec. It just seems like another quick fix to plug the current problems. I can't imagine ARIA markup being used all that much anyway (I will use it, but I am talking about the majority of other developers). One of the reasons is because the majority of poor developers out there cannot be bothered to learn anything new and don't give a hoot about accessibility. The state of the web at the moment in terms of accessibility is poor anyway. This shouldn't be as big a problem as it seems on the surface, because library vendors have already, or are in the process of adding it to their libraries. Developers will get it for free when they use off the shelf components, such as provided by Dojo, YUI etc. I would guess the poor developers you speak of would rather take a pre-written slider (for example) than write their own from scratch. I was speaking with a top PHP developer not so long back. He works for a company and is on serious money, and even he little idea about accessibility on the web. I think before we start implementing new ideas we need to inform the the current and the up and coming developers about accessibility. Education is really important, but that applies to all web technologies, not just WAI-ARIA. This is one of the reasons why Opera commissioned the Web Standards Curriculum, and a recent article on WAI- ARIA. You can check out both on dev.opera.com. Its not my place to say what should and what shouldn't happen on the web, these are just my views. It kind of reminds me of microformats. A brilliant idea but underused by developers. I am just going to carry on learning, and hope that the ARIA reaches its goals and targets and doesn't get brushed under the carpet. I'm hopeful because of the early adoption by both browser and library vendors that it will be adopted. Even if it is just used by the likes of Google to make its map controls accessible then that will be a small win. Because of the way it was designed it is possible to retrofit previously inaccessible sites to make them more accessible. James On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Laura Carlson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What about browsers that don't support ARIA markup? Graceful degradation (if the page is well written). Or progressive enhancement. Some references: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/javascript#access A good intro to WAI ARIA by Gez Lemon: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introduction-to-wai-aria/ Best Regards, Laura ___ Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** David Storey Chief Web Opener, Product Manager Opera Dragonfly, Consumer Product Manager Opera Core, Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group member Consumer Product Management Developer Relations Opera Software ASA Oslo, Norway Mobile: +47 94 22 02 32 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://my.opera.com/dstorey *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [WSG] Re: ARIA
David Storey wrote: HTML4 and XHTML1 are the here and now. WAI_ARIA was retrofitted from XHTML2 (I believe) to HTML so that it could be used right away. All major browser vendors support it now, once IE8 comes out. Anyone know when the W3C validator will support it? :-) -- Hassan Schroeder - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webtuitive Design === (+1) 408-621-3445 === http://webtuitive.com dream. code. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: ARIA
On 10 Aug 2008, at 23:09, Hassan Schroeder wrote: David Storey wrote: HTML4 and XHTML1 are the here and now. WAI_ARIA was retrofitted from XHTML2 (I believe) to HTML so that it could be used right away. All major browser vendors support it now, once IE8 comes out. Anyone know when the W3C validator will support it? :-) The only thing that would stop the validator from supporting it would be if you used a Doctype which was: (a) In the validator's local catalogue and (b) Referenced a DTD that had been *changed* to add ARIA features and (c) That DTD hadn't been updated in the local catalogue since that change (Obviously you have to validate against a DTD that includes ARIA features) -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/ http://blog.dorward.me.uk/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: ARIA
David Dorward wrote: Anyone know when the W3C validator will support it? :-) (Obviously you have to validate against a DTD that includes ARIA features) Right, and the only thing I could find relating to this was: !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC Accessible Adaptive Applications//EN http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd; :: which the validator rejects -- hence the question :-) -- Hassan Schroeder - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webtuitive Design === (+1) 408-621-3445 === http://webtuitive.com dream. code. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
