Re: [orca-list] Live regions in a non-web application?

[Janina Sajka <janina rednote net>]

I want to respond on this thread because there seem to be some
misunderstandings about ARIA. A few key points:

1.)     ARIA is not limited to html or to web applications. It is
intended for any host language that might implement ARIA.

        The host language benefits because implementing ARIA delivers
accessibility support in a manner that should be consistent to
content authors and application developers, as well as to assistive
technologies.

        Authors and developers benefit by getting a consistent markup to
support accessibility whatever the underlying host language.

        Assistive technology benefits by getting a consistent markup
that can reasonably be expected to work consistently in all kinds of environments.

`       Repair tools (such as webvisum) benefit because they can repair
non-ARIA markup with ARIA markup. Example, it may be 
possible to huristically discover live regions at some public URI and add missing
ARIA markup to support accessibility in live regions where the page
author had not done that.

2.)     This leads to the point that many of the behaviors ARIA
addresses are being used, ever more widely, by applications and content,
whether, however these are delivered to end users. Live regions exist,
with or without the ARIA markup that helps make them accessible. Page
landmarks, such as navigation bars, page footers, etc., have long
existed. ARIA landmarks simply help designate these so that an AT user
might have the opportunity to access them conveniently or ignore them
completely.

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the day we can apply
ARIA landmarks to nav bars, so we can simply have them disappear until
we want to access them.

To learn more about ARIA, look at:

http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20091215/introduction.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20091215/host_languages.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-implementation-20091215/
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-practices-20091215/

Please note that ARIA is an emerging specification from the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C). It is currently in late stages of development and
is expected to become a recommendation of the W3C early in 2011.

-- 

Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.443.300.2200
                sip:janina asterisk rednote net

Chair, Open Accessibility       janina a11y org 
Linux Foundation                http://a11y.org

Chair, Protocols & Formats
Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)