Validation And WAI-ARIA

Posted by Nile | Posted in WordPress | Posted on 11-28-2009 | 3 Comments

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For those who are W3 warriors, web standard is important. However, for those validating each page, you will run into a validation error on your comments.php with aria-required=’true’.

This is the code chunk where it is found in comments.php:


<?php if ($req) echo "aria-required='true'"; ?>

This refers to an WAI-ARIA Primer, which is basically an add-on to XHTML 1.1 for use in for accessibility with dynamic applications. It helps those with handicap to know what fields are required. The markup for WAI-ARIA is still in draft and has been since February 2008. While currently in draft and not yet fully supported, this is an area that either the template designer can either leave out the WordPress coding or keep it.

For accessibility sake and hopefully more development with WAI-ARIA, it is harmless to leave the code on comments.php.

What are your views on this feature?

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About Nile Flores

Web and graphic designer fom Southern Illinois. I love to work with WordPress.

Connect with Nile at: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Nile has written 87 articles at WPAddict.

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Comments (3)

xioup said on 18-12-2009

My take on this attribute is that it’s wrong to include the attribute in a document with a doctype that doesn’t support it.

I’ve removed it from my site for the time being. I’ll happily re-add it when it’s added to the XHTML 1.0 Strict doctype.
Nile said on 26-12-2009

While it may be wrong , I do know that there may be use for it in the future. Perhaps it was best for them to not include the code until they have put it to use and W3 has worked out WAI-ARIA more from its draft stages.
Jolle said on 09-03-2010

I will remove it from the comment.php file since it is not needed (yet) because it gives a validation error. Thank you for pointing this out.
.-= Jolle´s last blog ..The smelly, bizarre looking plant Hydnora africana! =-.