Buttons accessibility

blepore

I am someone that works at an organization that must deal with web accessibility. We have recently been using DataTables and are looking to use the Buttons Extension. While I find the functionality fantastic, the markup generated does not follow web standards. The code generates anchor tags, rather than button tags. According to spec anchor tags should only be used to navigate to a resource, while button are used for actions as determined by its type. To maintain semantics the Buttons extension should be using the Buttons tag with the type attribute set to "button".

I realize this will require CSS changes and that you would need to override some default browser styles, but in its present form this extension does not allow for the passage of WCAG 2.0 Level A for guideline 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value) because it does not apply the role of the tag (hyperlink) does not match the role that should be intended here (button).

I asked accessibility expert Karl Groves over in a11ySlackers on Slacker on whether or not this functionality should be treated as a link or a button. His reply.

“navigation” isn’t just about URLs but about context. Navigation is a change in context. If the context doesn’t change, its a button.