undefined | Better HN

0 pointsafavour4mo ago0 comments

I wonder if at any point browsers will offer a low level accessibility API for you to manually describe components. I’ve worked in the web for years and I’m a big believer but it’s also indisputable that Canvas offers more performant UI rendering than HTML when done correctly. I don’t think it should ever be used for web “documents” but web apps already bastardize HTML and CSS to achieve their aims anyway. Accessibility remains the missing component.

0 comments

shakna4mo ago

As far as standards is concerned, that API is ARIA [0].

W3C already offers guides for accessibility and canvas. But no one who opts for canvas turns around and remembers to do their landmarks.

zigzag3124mo ago

> But no one who opts for canvas turns around and remembers to do their landmarks.

Not completely true. Flutter has been adding some accessibility for web canvas target. [1]

I think Avalonia is in in the make it work phase. Accessibility will probably be added in the make it right phase.

[1] https://docs.flutter.dev/ui/accessibility/web-accessibility

afavourOP4mo ago

Then I’m showing my ignorance… how do you add ARIA landmarks to Canvas elements?

kg4mo ago

You would create transparent DOM elements in the right places with the right ARIA attributes and content, I suspect.

2 more replies

troupo4mo ago

> I wonder if at any point browsers will offer a low level accessibility API for you to manually describe components

Accessibility Object Model:

https://wicg.github.io/aom/spec/

It's very slowly coming together, but it won't be rone for many years yet. Especially since what you want is Phase 3.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse