[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #33952: get_search_form() accessibility improvements

[WordPress Trac]

#33952: get_search_form() accessibility improvements
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 Reporter:  afercia        |       Owner:
     Type:  defect (bug)   |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal         |   Milestone:  4.5
Component:  Bundled Theme  |     Version:  3.6
 Severity:  normal         |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch      |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility
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Comment (by sharonaustin):

 Replying to [comment:9 afercia]:
 > Discussed in today's accessibility weekly chat. Decided to make just a
 first step and propose to remove just the title attribute. There's room
 for further improvements, for example about the placeholder that should be
 optional. The plan is to evaluate them as part of a more general approach
 in #31818.
 >
 > For some background, the title attribute was added in [23801] see the
 related ticket #16539 for the argumentation related to issues with very
 old browser/screen reader combos (Jaws7/IE6).
 >

 Sir, thank you so much to you and the team for the work being done here,
 and for all of accessibility.

 I am still concerned about removing the "both" the title attribute and the
 placeholder.

 I was wondering if I should have said something earlier, but I wanted to
 walk away from it and think about it for a while.   After these months
 away, I am still uncomfortable about it.

 In the first set of tests, it is true that I wanted to accommodate all
 earlier recommendations, including removing the placeholder and title
 attributes. When I did so, it removed some of the verbosity associated
 with the screen reader feedback, and of course that is a great thing.


 That said, I am still reluctant to remove both the placeholder and the
 title attribute because of their additional function as a kind of "safety
 net" when other resources are not available to assistive technology.

 From this reference: 6. Accessible Name and Description calculation  --
 one can see that the title attribute is used as an accessible name
 description of last resort

 http://www.w3.org/TR/html-aapi/#accessible-name-and-description-
 calculation

 input type="text", input type="password", input type="search", input
 type="tel", input type="email", input type="url" and textarea element
 accessible description calculation

 Use aria-describedby
 Otherwise use the placeholder attribute if it wasn't used as the
 accessible name
 Otherwise use the title attribute if it wasn't used as the accessible
 name.
 If none of the above yield a usable text string there is no accessible
 description

 I understand the move to remove the title attribute and placeholder, but
 is it possible that we can consider removing only one of them, and not
 both, as work progresses?  I think a safety net should be in place.

 Thank you for your consideration, and for the work done here.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/33952#comment:11>
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