How is ARIA practical for authors? Why not wait for HTML 5?
It’s unfortunate that so much work rests on the part of JavaScript authors to develop widgets, and that HTML 5 is not yet an option, but that’s the reality. It’s not clear when HTML 5 will be ubiquitous enough to rely on. There is still much work to be done on the specification itself. How long might HTML 5 take before content developers can fully adopt it? For a historical example, we can look at CSS 2, which took 7 years to become ubiquitous enough for developers to rely on. However, because JavaScript is already available, developers are using it to develop advanced functionality right now. For authors needing to develop their own advanced widgets now, ARIA is currently the only way to make those accessible. Is it easy? Not necessarily, but there are examples to go from, and work continues on documentation to assist authors. In the very long term, for most common widgets, natural HTML elements may be easier to use. However, it is likely to take a long time for HTML to catch up with
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- How is ARIA practical for authors? Why not wait for HTML 5?
