Tag: WAI-ARIA

Videos of Screen Readers with Basic HTML5 and ARIA Landmarks

With the rapid development in certain user agents (take that, Firefox!), I’m a little late in getting these up, but I figure some of them are still useful to share. In any case, I posted to YouTube five videos of various screen readers interacting with basic HTML5 section elements and ARIA landmarks. These are videos I presented at the 2011… Continue reading

HTML5, ARIA Roles, and Screen Readers in March 2011

Last year, in HTML5, ARIA Roles, and Screen Readers in March 2010, I took a look at how then current screen readers behaved with some of the HTML5 section elements and related WAI-ARIA document and landmark roles. Now that the major screen readers have all seen some significant updates, and both Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 have officially been… Continue reading

It's Spelled aria-labelledby

This is just a quick note on spelling. The specification for aria-labelledby identifies the attribute’s correct spelling as “aria-labelledby”, as opposed to what might be its expected U.S. English spelling, “aria-labeledby”. Apparently, the approved spelling was selected to minimize the difficulty for developers. However, seeing as how easy it is to find examples in the wild where the attribute is… Continue reading

An ARIA alert Test Case

I put together a few examples of ARIA alerts and tested them with JAWS and NVDA in Firefox 3.6, Internet Explorer 7 and 8. The interesting bit is how alerts can be improved for JAWS 10 in Internet Explorer by adding an aria-live attribute value of “assertive”. Continue reading

Not All ARIA Widgets Deserve role="application"

There are currently some great examples of WAI-ARIA-enabled widgets out there making the rounds. In particular, there’s Hans Hillen’s JQuery Widget Samples and the collection from the OpenAjax Alliance. These are nothing short of very useful. After all, ARIA is yet to be a full W3C recommendation (or standard, if you prefer), and we are all, or at least I… Continue reading

An HTML5 plus ARIA "Sanity Check": Working Around Bugs in AT

Dennis at WebAxe recently called for developers to take a “sanity check” when working with HTML5. His point was not to dissuade us from developing with HTML5, but to remind us to do so “caution and care”, in particular because of the current level of support among different browsers and assistive technnologies (AT) for HTML5 and WAI-ARIA. But what do we do when faced with a user agent or AT that, as a result of a bug in its software, and instead of simply ignoring what it doesn’t understand, actively misbehaves when it comes across this or that HTML5 construct or ARIA attribute? Continue reading

Accessible ARIA Tabs

The WAI-ARIA specification remains unfinished and its implementation incomplete. All the same, some of it, e.g., landmark roles, can be used right now to improve the accessibility of web content and applications without causing a detrimental effect in older browsers or assistive technologies. I’m a big fan of WAI-ARIA, and think it is already a very useful collection of techniques… Continue reading

tabindex, Keyboard Focus and Some ARIA in Screen Readers

These test cases are in no way comprehensive or robust: They should really be supplemented with examples using a greater variety of HTML5 elements and ARIA roles, but I just can’t be bothered at this point. Nonetheless, they reveal some interesting, if not slightly worrying, behaviour on the part of at least two screen readers. At least two things are… Continue reading

HTML5, ARIA Roles, and Screen Readers in May 2010

Note: Updated research and results for March 2011. There are some good, helpful examples and work out there already showing how some screen readers deal with various HTML5 constructs and ARIA roles. I know the specs are not finished yet and assistive technology vendors are always working on it, but I wanted to play around a bit and confirm for… Continue reading