The WAI-ARIA 1.0 standard has received the official status recommended by the W3C: what to expect in the future and where to run now?
At the end of March 2014, the World Wide Web Consortium approved the WAI-ARIA 1.0 standard (Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications (Web Accessibility Initiative - Availability of high-tech Internet applications)). This is a set of techniques and methods that make complex dynamic pages and web applications accessible to users with disabilities. The fact is that a number of new dynamic web technologies, and just the use of custom interface elements, for example, form elements or stylized div headings instead of the standard H1-H6, can cause problems for some users, mainly people with visual impairments and motor skills.
The development of WAI-ARIA began back in 2008, and initial support for this technology appeared in browsers such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.x or Opera 9.5. True, due to the constant development of the standard, as well as its lack of official status, support for ARIA designs varies greatly from browser to browser. So, according to recent studies, Internet Explorer supports about 37% of all features, Firefox - 85%, and Chrome (Opera also) - 47%. In addition, various auxiliary software, in particular, screen-access programs used by blind users in their work, also support WAI-ARIA to varying degrees and with different specifics.
Thus, at the current stage of development of this technology, its full implementation in large projects is quite difficult to implement without the involvement of serious expertise, because often the process of ensuring the availability of interfaces goes beyond compliance with the standard, moving into the field of adaptation to the specifics of browsers and assistive technologies, and sometimes frankly under their flaws. In addition, the most popular browsers among the target audience of users are Firefox and Internet Explorer, which, as mentioned above, differ in a very serious spread in the level of support for the standard, which adds a headache to the interface designer.
With the approval of WAI-ARIA as the recommended standard, it can be expected that browser and auxiliary software developers will finally be able to focus on more serious support for the opportunities they provide, as the technology has settled down and has ceased to change constantly.
As for ordinary web developers, they should start familiarizing themselves with WAI-ARIA with a general overview and W3C blog post , and then go directly to the standard itself. Basic things about additional semantic layout for screen access programs, such as assigning basic roles and the state of elements, are already supported quite widely and do not imply an ultra-deep immersion in the topic, therefore, adhering to WAI-ARIA at this level does not require serious efforts, while it solves the most acute problems availability. It is also useful to use navigation areas, that is, semantic highlighting of key areas of the page, such as headings (role = "banner"), navigation bar (role = "navigation"), main area (role = "main"), footer (role = "contentinfo ") And others.
However, when using WAI-ARIA, it must be understood that, for example,
and
are not equivalent, as the additional semantics of WAI-ARIA are intended solely for supporting software and do not affect browser behavior. That is, the first example will be considered a link from the point of view of the screen reader, but from the point of view of the browser, it will still remain a normal block and will not be focused from the keyboard through tabs. As a result, at the first implementation it is still necessary to add the tabindex attribute. So it may make sense to just use standard HTML structural elements to simplify the layout process. In the end, if the user configuration does not sufficiently support WAI-ARIA, then all the efforts of the developer to support this technology may be meaningless, while the use of links,
Professionals involved in infrastructure web-projects, for example, in the development of browsers, also make sense to read the document " WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide " ( Implementation Guide WAI-ARIA 1.0 for client applications).
In general, WAI-ARIA's approval in the assistive technology world is an important milestone, although perhaps people far away from this don't really feel the pathos of the moment. Everything necessary to ensure the high availability of the modern Internet is now there, it remains only to hope that this will be appreciated not only by specialists in the narrow field of accessibility.
The development of WAI-ARIA began back in 2008, and initial support for this technology appeared in browsers such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.x or Opera 9.5. True, due to the constant development of the standard, as well as its lack of official status, support for ARIA designs varies greatly from browser to browser. So, according to recent studies, Internet Explorer supports about 37% of all features, Firefox - 85%, and Chrome (Opera also) - 47%. In addition, various auxiliary software, in particular, screen-access programs used by blind users in their work, also support WAI-ARIA to varying degrees and with different specifics.
Thus, at the current stage of development of this technology, its full implementation in large projects is quite difficult to implement without the involvement of serious expertise, because often the process of ensuring the availability of interfaces goes beyond compliance with the standard, moving into the field of adaptation to the specifics of browsers and assistive technologies, and sometimes frankly under their flaws. In addition, the most popular browsers among the target audience of users are Firefox and Internet Explorer, which, as mentioned above, differ in a very serious spread in the level of support for the standard, which adds a headache to the interface designer.
With the approval of WAI-ARIA as the recommended standard, it can be expected that browser and auxiliary software developers will finally be able to focus on more serious support for the opportunities they provide, as the technology has settled down and has ceased to change constantly.
As for ordinary web developers, they should start familiarizing themselves with WAI-ARIA with a general overview and W3C blog post , and then go directly to the standard itself. Basic things about additional semantic layout for screen access programs, such as assigning basic roles and the state of elements, are already supported quite widely and do not imply an ultra-deep immersion in the topic, therefore, adhering to WAI-ARIA at this level does not require serious efforts, while it solves the most acute problems availability. It is also useful to use navigation areas, that is, semantic highlighting of key areas of the page, such as headings (role = "banner"), navigation bar (role = "navigation"), main area (role = "main"), footer (role = "contentinfo ") And others.
However, when using WAI-ARIA, it must be understood that, for example,
textand
textare not equivalent, as the additional semantics of WAI-ARIA are intended solely for supporting software and do not affect browser behavior. That is, the first example will be considered a link from the point of view of the screen reader, but from the point of view of the browser, it will still remain a normal block and will not be focused from the keyboard through tabs. As a result, at the first implementation it is still necessary to add the tabindex attribute. So it may make sense to just use standard HTML structural elements to simplify the layout process. In the end, if the user configuration does not sufficiently support WAI-ARIA, then all the efforts of the developer to support this technology may be meaningless, while the use of links,
Professionals involved in infrastructure web-projects, for example, in the development of browsers, also make sense to read the document " WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide " ( Implementation Guide WAI-ARIA 1.0 for client applications).
In general, WAI-ARIA's approval in the assistive technology world is an important milestone, although perhaps people far away from this don't really feel the pathos of the moment. Everything necessary to ensure the high availability of the modern Internet is now there, it remains only to hope that this will be appreciated not only by specialists in the narrow field of accessibility.