Clarification on aria-sort="none"

[zelliott]

Looking for some clarification on the usage of aria-sort="none".

I have a data table with a number of columns. Some of the columns are sortable, some are not sortable. For the column that is sortable and being sorted on, I add aria-sort="[ascending|descending] appropriately.

For the columns that are sortable but not being sorted on, should I add aria-sort="none"? Or should I omit aria-sort altogether?

The Data Grid Example page (https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/examples/grid/dataGrids.html) seems to imply that aria-sort="none" should be added "when a column is sortable but not sorted."

On the other hand, the W3C spec (https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/states_and_properties) states that each data table should only apply aria-sort to a single header at any given point in time.

Moreover, no SR (as far as I can tell) announces anything differently if a cell has aria-sort="none" vs. omits aria-sort.

Looking for some clarificiation here... thanks.

[JAWS-test]

Related: https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/724 and https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/582

Good would be:

• no aria-sort = column not sortable
• aria-sort=none = column sortable, but not sorted
• aria-sort=[other value] = column sorted
• several aria-sort per table are possible
• Hierarchy of sorting can also be specified (this is currently not possible).

[kolaps33]

@JAWS-test please what is status of the workitem? is there plan to implement aria-sort?, like is described in the comment from Oct 3, 2019.

It would be great if JAWS could support it.

[JAWS-test]

@kolaps33 I am not from Freedom Scientific, I just work with JAWS on a daily basis. Therefore, I can't tell you when problems in JAWS will be fixed.