The robust principle #

This page is for developers and designers. The fourth WCAG principle says that content must be robust enough to be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/). In WCAG 2.2 it has two criteria at level A and AA: 4.1.2 Name, role, value and 4.1.3 Status messages; 4.1.1 Parsing was removed in 2.2.

Contents #

1. 4.1.2 Name, role, value
2. 4.1.3 Status messages
3. Why structured content helps
4. Related pages

4.1.2 Name, role, value #

• Native first. The project follows the first rule of ARIA: native elements are preferred; a title does not count as a name, and aria-label must not replace a visible label that has text (AdminFormLabelsTest.php; WAI-ARIA 1.2).
• Patterns. Where custom widgets are needed, admin4 follows the ARIA Authoring Practices: tabs, tree view, disclosure navigation (the opt-in mega menu), menus, toggle buttons with aria-pressed. WAI-ARIA 1.2 is at https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.2/.
• Your templates. Every custom control in your public design (a menu button, an accordion, a filter) needs a name, the right role and its state (aria-expanded, aria-selected, aria-current).

The project's status for WAI-ARIA is Partly complies for admin4, Unverified elsewhere; its tests check markup and script hooks, not runtime behavior in a screen reader.

4.1.3 Status messages #

• Admin4 announces toasts through one pair of live regions and help search results through aria-live; module messages carry role="alert" or a status role (AdminNoticesTest.php).
• In your design: "item added", "form sent", "no results" must be announced without moving the focus, with role="status" or an aria-live region.

Why structured content helps #

Exponential stores rich text as XML and renders it through templates, rather than storing free HTML (Accessibility for site builders). That means:

• one template fix changes the markup of every heading, table or link at once;
• what editors write is stored in the tags the rich text format allows, not as arbitrary markup with roles of its own;
• output escaping in templates (|wash) keeps stored values from breaking the markup.

Related pages #

• Accessibility standards
• The admin4 design
• Mapping WCAG 2.2 AA to Exponential
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.