"Element with presentational children has no focusable content" (rule 307n5z) - adding examples

[dan-tripp-siteimprove]

Adding examples to rule presentational-children-no-focusable-content-307n5z. Mostly uncontroversial, I think, except for Inapplicable Example 4 ("At the time of writing..."), which I expect will ruffle some feathers.

Closes issue(s): none

Need for Call for Review:
This will not require a Call for Review : editorial changes (including to the applicability, expectation or examples section)

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[Jym77]

The examples are good. The descriptions are very verbose and going into much more details compared to what we usually do. Some of these discussions might be moved to the background section instead (e.g. the discussion about presentational/hidden/decorative.

[Jym77]

That's why we use "marked as decorative", and not "decorative" 😄
Being "marked as decorative" is showing author intention to somehow remove the content. It doesn't necessarily means that the content will effectively be removed/hidden/… (because the presentational role conflict resolution can trigger).

I also consider "decorative" as being a semantic property of the page. "presentational" (or role of presentation (post-conflict resolution)) is more of a functional/effective property of the page. The same way that "being a label (WCAG sense of the term)" is a semantic property while using a label element is the functional property (and the way to convey that semantics programmatically). That is, an image is "decorative" not because it has alt="" but because it is "serving only an aesthetic purpose, providing no information, and having no functionality" (WCAG's "pure decoration"). Adding alt="" is a way to convey programmatically the fact that the image is decorative, so that ATs can treat it differently from a non-decorative image.

In that spirit, "marked as decorative" is "the author tried to convey programmatically the semantic information that something is decorative". This may work as intended (and the stuff will be either presentational or hidden), but this may also fail (and the stuff will be exposed as normal).

[dan-tripp-siteimprove]

Okay, so decorative != marked as decorative. Even if that's okay (which is unclear to me), I still think we have a problem.

I would draw a venn diagram here if I could, but I can't, so here is a tree which represents a venn diagram of the situation you described. (In this venn diagram tree, all child sets totally consume the parent set. eg. Set B minus Set C minus Set D = an empty set.)

• Set A: marked as decorative
  • Set B: "marked as decorative" worked
    • Set C: presentational
    • Set D: hidden
  • Set E: "marked as decorative" did not work (==> still has semantics)

That presents two problems:

1. Sets C and D are so different, I think it's confusing for us to include them both under "Set B: "marked as decorative" worked".
2. I think that "Set D: hidden" corresponds to what most people think when they hear "marked as decorative". Also, I suspect that it overlaps precisely with their ideas of "decorative" and WCAG's "pure decoration" - and that's a good thing. If we go with the the above venn diagram, someone might say that ACT is out of touch, and they would be right.

[carlosapaduarte]

While I think this feedback about how some definitions can be perceived is important, I don't think this is a good place to discuss it. I would suggest @dan-tripp-siteimprove opens an issue to discuss these points, and rewrite the example description is a less verbose manner.

[dan-tripp-siteimprove]

Some of these discussions might be moved to the background section instead (e.g. the discussion about presentational/hidden/decorative.

I can do that. How about I move Inapplicable Examples 3 and 4 to the Background section?

[carlosapaduarte]

Tried to cut down on the verbosity of the example's descriptions.

[carlosapaduarte]

While I think this feedback about how some definitions can be perceived is important, I don't think this is a good place to discuss it. I would suggest @dan-tripp-siteimprove opens an issue to discuss these points, and rewrite the example description is a less verbose manner.

[dan-tripp-siteimprove]

I would suggest @dan-tripp-siteimprove opens an issue to discuss these points, and rewrite the example description is a less verbose manner.
@carlosapaduarte That's fair. I haven't opened a new issue yet - I'll discuss it in-person first. I did rewrite the example description and pushed another commit (d161d08). Let me know what you think.

Changes done

[tombrunet]

@dan-tripp-siteimprove I think what's here is fine. Is it worth mentioning for Inapplicable 4 that that issue is covered by another rule (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/act/rules/6cfa84/)?

[dan-tripp-siteimprove]

@dan-tripp-siteimprove I think what's here is fine. Is it worth mentioning for Inapplicable 4 that that issue is covered by another rule (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/act/rules/6cfa84/)?

I think yes, and I just did it in commit d7ea3d3. Thank you.

Changes done

[Jym77]

Just some cleanup.

Changes done