Create an APG entry for Switch widgets

Wildebrew commented 3 years ago

There are essentially two ways to build a switch widget:

Using a button element with role="switch" and aria-checked" (instead of aria-pressed)
Using a checkbox element with role="switch" and aria-checked to be toggled (unless it is sufficient to use the underlying HTML checked state, I do not see the ARIA spec being clear on whether this is possible).

Different screen reader/browser combinations expose switches inconsistently, some expose the underlying semantics without mentioning a switch, others expose the switch but also mention it as both "pressed" and "checked" or even "on".

There is a good discussion of this in NVDA issue 9187.

The discussion points out the inconsistency between the ARIA spec, which says that "a switch it a type of checkbox" (see the definition of the switch role), and the AAM spec, which recommends mapping a switch as a toggle button.

I think we need a common source of truth to run these tests and fine-tune these behavior, an example of the switch role in the APG along with two examples, one based on a toggle button, one based on a checkbox. The outcome, as far as the screen reader user experience is concerned, should be the same.

I think there is enough confusion here to warrant a separate entry for the switch role (independent of checkboxes and toggle buttons).

JAWS-test commented 3 years ago

Results for JAWS: https://github.com/FreedomScientific/VFO-standards-support/issues/368

JAWS-test commented 3 years ago

w3c / aria-practices

Create an APG entry for Switch widgets #1861