[A11y] Links of workbench.parts.banner have role="button"

Type: Bug

Hi folks,

I’ve found that <a> nodes which work like links have role="button" at workbench.parts.banner. That happens because there is a line which explicitly set it for every Link instance: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/650e4b5e68d22d111ed22e571c274ddf48faa96a/src/vs/platform/opener/browser/link.ts#L93

Do you know if there is a reason to override the role value? Shall there be a way to explicitly change the role for some specific actions?

Role descriptions:

• button
• link

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.70.0-insider (92fd228156aafeb326b23f6604028d342152313b, 2022-07-19T13:01:49.834Z) OS version: Darwin x64 21.5.0 Modes: Restricted

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel® Core™ i9-9880H CPU @ 2.30GHz (16 x 2300)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: disabled_off direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled metal: disabled_off multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_renderer: enabled_on video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	2, 2, 2
Memory (System)	64.00GB (21.49GB free)
Process Argv	–crash-reporter-id dae9747d-a608-49fb-967b-b0bdd43dcc8f
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions: none

A/B Experiments

vsliv695:30137379
vsins829:30139715
vsliv368:30146709
vsreu685:30147344
python383cf:30185419
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vstes627:30244334
vslsvsres303:30308271
pythonvspyl392:30422396
pythontb:30258533
pythonptprofiler:30281269
vshan820:30294714
pythondataviewer:30285072
vscod805:30301674
bridge0708:30335490
bridge0723:30353136
vsaa593cf:30376535
pythonvs932:30404738
wslgetstarted:30449409
vscscmwlcmt:30465136
cppdebug:30492333
pylanb8912:30522163
vsclangdf:30492506

[sbatten]

based on the feedback from @isidorn , I’ve added info-needed since our current behavior is based on previous guidance.

[isidorn]

@mbelsky thanks for opening this issue. I believe this was recommended to us some time ago by members of our accessibility community. Unfortunately I do not remember more details. If you want you can try to remove that line, and create a PR and test it out. And let us know what is the exact difference you see when using this with a screen reader. I think we are open for a change here if you have a good reason.