How should `interestfor` work on a disabled button

[mfreed7]

An example use case would be a hovercard that explains why the button is disabled. This case should work just fine for mouse users, since you can still hover a disabled button. But disabled buttons aren't focusable, nor are they typically long-pressable. So we need a solution for those users. One option is to make such a disabled button focusable. I'm not sure about the a11y implications of that. For touchscreen users, it might still be "ok" to long-press a disabled button and have something happen?

Other suggestions?

[lukewarlow]

Just as an fyi #1002

I would lean towards just not supporting it on disabled buttons, but it's possible there's an alternative approach.

[josepharhar]

If the author wants to disable a button and use interestfor on it, can they just change styles on it to make it look disabled and turn off their own activation behavior for it instead of using the disabled attribute?

[scottaohara]

it shouldn't work on a disabled control. if a disabled control needs to be identified as to why it's disabled, then invoking it from the disabled control will ensure that many people who aren't using a pointer device won't get that information.

[b1tr0t]

Joey's solution might suffice.

One critical use case here is disabled controls that use a rich tooltip or hovercard to explain why they are disabled. This might be critical information, and all users should be able to access it.

[scottaohara]

If it were really critical then people wouldn’t be using an anti pattern to identify why the element was disabled. They’d either make that information part of the ui, or they wouldn’t disable the control, but when someone attempted to activate it, they’d receive a notification of whatever the issue is.

[lukewarlow]

One potential way to make this reasonable is to augment how disabled works when used in combination with interestfor.

• Still Reflect aria-disabled as true
• No longer remove the button from the tabindex
• Prevent Default the activation behaviour
• All interestfor behaviour would still work as expected

This way you could provide the explanation to all users (using mouse, keybaord or AT).

Though I'm not sure that actually addresses the concerns Scott mentions. It at least avoids something that only mouse users can use?

[scottaohara]

To make sure it could be read by everyone it’d also need to have its contrast updated on at least hover and focus, and along with Luke’s comment now we’ve now almost completely reverted this to resemble a non-disabled control where someone could have just prevented the activation behavior but provided this interest target.