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ARIA role tests on MAC - Safari 4 beta Firefox 3 (minefield) & Opera 10 Alpha

Summary

WAI-ARIA has 59 possible role values (excluding abstract roles):

• Firefox (Minefield) 3.2a1pre exposes 0 role values correctly via the MAC accessibility API
• Opera 10 Alpha exposes 14 role values correctly via the MAC accessibility API
• Safari 4 Beta exposes 15 role values correctly via The MAC accessibility API

Software used for testing

• MAC OS X 10
• Safari 4 beta
• Opera 10.00 alpha
• Firefox (Minefield) 3.2a1pre build with accessibility enabled (thanks to David Bolter)
• Accessibility UIElementInspector

Methodology

• Use UIElementInspector tool to verify the roles exposed via the MAC accessibility API for each of the WAI-ARIA role attribute values.
• The first column of the results table contains cells with each of the 59 ARIA roles assigned, for example:
  <td tabindex="0" role="alert">alert</td>
  
• Place the mouse cursor in the cell, but not over the text the cell contains. Use of Mouse is required as the Inspector tool does not react to focus events.
• "Expected Roles" were derived from reading the various references and trying to patch together expectations based on them.

Notes

• If the role name is included in the result column for a browser without any annotation, it indciates the correct role is being exposed, otherwise:
  • (Unsure) after a result means it is not clear if the exposed role is appropriate.
  • X after a result means an incorrect or no role is exposed.
• For roles with an "Expected MAC Accessibility API Role" value of "Not Known" the incorrect role value is being derived from the td element the role attribute is assigned to.

References

• WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0
• Apple Accessibility - Roles and Associated Attributes
• Accessibility/Comparisons:Roles
• IE8 ARIA Role mapping table

Author: steve faulkner The Paciello Group
contact: sfaulkner@paciellogroup.com