
Web accessibility for 2019 - daftpanda
https://blog.sourcerer.io/building-web-accessibility-in-2019-b4bf16ef5754
======
dfabulich
The author describes what he purports to be a simple, universal language for
literally _all content_. Everything, he says, can be described and explained
in terms of "role, states, attributes, relations, and actions."

> _Does your web app use chemistry ring formulas or math equations or anything
> else from any other subject you can think of? So, you can definitely
> describe all those symbols and formulas to your friend, so your friend can
> understand those, right? Thus, you should be able to express those in
> accessibility concepts as well. You may want to practice on your own to see
> how it goes._

But why those five concepts in particular? Philosophers have been attempting
to identify a set of universal groups for human concepts since the ancient
Greeks, (it's called "ontology") and I see no reason to think that the author
happens to have solved this problem.

For example, what's the difference between a state and an attribute? Is an
action a relation between the subject and its object? If an object can change
roles, is that a state change? Or is it a change in the relation of the object
to its role? Is a role change just an action?

All of the author's proposed accessibility concepts mush together when you
think about them critically.

In contrast, WAI-ARIA, taking the problem of taxonomy seriously, did not
attempt to define five core accessibility concepts and apply them to all of
human experience. They have a zillion different roles, developed more or less
organically, to address specific UI use cases.

ARIA's complexity isn't just an unfortunate fact of history; this is literally
the best that humanity can do. We can't simplify the world into five kinds of
concepts, and it's not worth trying.

~~~
alekssrkv
Those five concepts are not random, they go from the assistive technologies
world: most if not all desktop APIs use these terms.

Agreed, the state concept (or even role concept) can be technically mapped
into attributes, but I keep using them just to stick closer to existing
terminology.

When it comes to ARIA, all browsers map ARIA taxonomies into desktop APIs, and
thus I think it's fair to say ARIA is mapped into those concepts as well.

But this post wasn't an attempt to define accessibility concepts as such. It
was rather about answering a question, whether a large set of accessibility
problems can be solved, if the web came with a technology that provides
greater access to express semantics to web devs.

~~~
dfabulich
No, those problems can’t be solved this way. Your taxonomy may seem more
“expressive” to you, but your five concepts are too vague to build a useful
screen-reader around. Web developers won’t use the concepts consistently;
screen readers won’t interpret them consistently.

None of the relevant vendors are on board, because they’ve all considered a
simpler taxonomy and rejected the idea, in favor of a richer, more complex
system that can actually be implemented.

~~~
alekssrkv
Having these concepts exposed to the web doesn't repeal the necessary of
standardization, i.e. both web developers and AT vendors has to stay in
agreement on content semantics they operate with, but it will make the
agreement process simpler than it's now, because it doesn't require
implementation from browsers for each and every new feature. Also it will
enable experimenting on the web, where web developers and AT vendors can try
new things before stuffing them into standards, which should boost the
accessible web.

~~~
threatofrain
I think people have been moving away from the semantic organization because
trying to properly dimensionalize the web has been so fraught.

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paulryanrogers
Not so sure ARIA is the most practical answer since it's so big and full of
edge cases.

Still, the promise of a more text descriptive web is exciting.

IME making JS optional, putting text descriptions, and preserving keyboard
access to all features is much lower hanging fruit.

~~~
alekssrkv
Agreed, however I bet making a website JSless may be a challenge in some
cases.

So I'd be cool to have something more powerful and flexible than ARIA is to
not limit web devs in choosing the techs.

~~~
eponeponepon
Taking an existing website and removing Javascript may well be a challenge.

But _building_ a website and simply not adding unnecessary Javascript in the
first place? Far less of a challenge.

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nitwit005
I doubt browser vendors can "fix" things for the more complex media types,
because they tend to have no straightforward answer.

What you tend to see with video games is that people appreciate games that
have a lot of configuration and control options. That let's the user figure
out something that works for them. Unfortunately, that's not going to be
expressible with some metadata like HTML attributes.

~~~
alekssrkv
I would love to have some examples. I believe there are cases which don't make
a perfect fit for metadata mappings, but keeping it on radar could help to
evolve techs right way and address such cases.

~~~
nitwit005
Here's a relatively recent thread with Ubisoft asking for help to improve
accessibility:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/disabledgamers/comments/8kf9bx/ubis...](https://www.reddit.com/r/disabledgamers/comments/8kf9bx/ubisoft_needs_your_help_re_games_and_accessibility/)

The consistent theme I see is being able to change the controls, which is
often game specific, making it difficult for the browser to help out.

