Questions about the toolbar role

[HadleyLuker]

Describe your concern

The description for the toolbar role currently reads:

Authors MUST supply a label on each toolbar when the application contains more than one toolbar.

I have some questions about this.

1. Does "label" mean "accessible name" here?
   • If so, would it be possible to change the phrasing to avoid confusion with WCAG's definition of "label"?
2. Should this be a MUST?
   • I mean this question genuinely.
   • This requirement seems unique to the toolbar role, but I'm not sure why.
   • Instinctually, MUST seems too restrictive.
     • I often see authors use the toolbar role as a non-focusable, standalone grouping for buttons without a menubar ancestor.
     • I think that is valid usage per the specification at this time.
     • However, in that context, I think there are ways for users to determine the purpose of the toolbar without an accessible name on the toolbar.
     • For example, depending on the structure of the page, users may be able to use the previous heading to determine the purpose of the toolbar.
   • SHOULD seems more appropriate.
     • According to my current understanding, I would expect the requirements for toolbar to be quite similar to those for the radiogroup role.

Please let me know if I am missing anything!

Link to the version of the specification or documentation you were looking at at.

Link to documentation: https://w3c.github.io/aria/#toolbar

Does the issue exists in the editors draft (the editors draft is the most recent draft of the specification)?

Yes

[pkra]

From a first look, it seems to me that the spec is inconsistent in its use of "label" (as a standalone word).

In most cases, "label" refers to the accessible name, usually to avoid repeating the different naming mechanisms. In particular, it is used in the definition of aria-label itself. Sometimes it does appear to be used more in the WCAG sense (e.g. in role region and table). And role=tab seems to be yet another (odd) way of using it.

Anyway, to the specific question:

Does "label" mean "accessible name" here?

I personally would say "yes".

This requirement seems unique to the toolbar role, but I'm not sure why.

I tend to agree. I suspect that WCAG would cover this requirement most of the time.

However, in that context, I think there are ways for users to determine the purpose of the toolbar without an accessible name on the toolbar.

Not directly related but I wonder if role=toolbar will get exposed on the accessibility tree if it does not have an accessible name.

So there are two tasks here: consider revising the author MUST and revisit uses of "label" throughout the spec.

[smhigley]

More specifically on the question of the author must -- we already have "name required" designations on roles, it does seem odd to me that we both of this stray author must around naming, and also on a role that does not have name required set. My guess is maybe it's because of the conditional -- that a name is required if there's more than one on the page. But in that case, it's odd that we don't have that for other roles as well (e.g. grid or menubar, both of which are also widget roles that typically exist inline on a page).

I wonder if it'd be worth reviewing our name required definitions -- there are some other things that feel inconsistent to me as well, e.g. that tree and treegrid both have name required, but other composite widgets like grid, toolbar, and tablist do not. Also seems like #2767 may be related too.