Re: UNS: Re: WCAG considering amending F65 to NOT fail missing ALT text if title or aria-label is present

I'm sorry, but I have to raise an objection here ...

Steven Faulkner writes:
> --initial twitter feedback from the community is strongly against changing
> > this failure
> >

And, what value does this add to the discussion in WCAG and on list
here?


You mention "the community on Twitter." I guess, as I'm not part of that
community, I must wonder who else is missing?

Also, I note that many people responding in email here have required
well over 141 chars to express their views. How did you vully vet these
concerns in SMS length messages? For instance, can your community
explain "layering violations?"

Lastly, have we now shifted to determining W3C specifications by  random
voting.

Frankly, I'm unclear why you even took this discussion to Twitter. What
did you expect to gain and how are we to understand the value of any
results? What good does this do? What value does it add?

Janina


> 
> further feedback conforms this:
> 
> https://twitter.com/stevefaulkner/status/404169363403456512
> 
> --
> 
> Regards
> 
> SteveF
> HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
> 
> 
> On 22 November 2013 23:27, David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> 
> > On behalf of the WCAG working group, I have an action item to solicit
> > responses from the wider community regarding a proposed amendment to WCAG
> > failure technique F65 regarding missing ALT. Currently; if an <img> element
> > is missing from an ALT attribute the page fails WCAG SC 1.1.1 Level A. Some
> > are proposing that we allow authors to use the aria-label, aria-labelledby,
> > and title attributes INSTEAD of ALT.
> >
> > So under the amended failure technique NONE of the following would fail
> > WCAG:
> >
> > <img src="../images/giraffe.jpg" title="Giraffe grazing on tree branches"/>
> >
> > <img src="../images/giraffe.jpg" aria-label="Giraffe grazing on tree
> > branches"/>
> >
> > <img src="../images/giraffe.jpg" aria-labelledby="123"/>
> > <p id="123"> Giraffe grazing on tree branches</p>
> >
> > As you can imagine there are strong opinions all around on this so I
> > suggested we get a sense of what other groups such as the HTML5 A11y TF and
> > PF think.
> >
> > Those in favour of the change provide the following rational:
> >
> > --These alternatives on the img element work in assistive technology
> > --The aria spec says these attributes should get an accessible NAME in the
> > API
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#textalternativecomputation
> > --They say it's easy to teach beginner programmers to just always use an
> > aria label on everything, rather than requiring a label on form fields and
> > alt on images
> > --They feel as a failure F65 is very strong if fails a page for missing
> > ALT,
> > especially if other things work, and they would like to soften it to allow
> > other things that work.
> > --html 5 allows a <figure><legend> combination instead of alt, so they feel
> > WCAG will have to change F65 anyway to allow a figure with a legend, and
> > that helps open the door to this discussion
> >
> > Those in favour of the status quo (which fails missing alt text) provide
> > the
> > following rational:
> >
> > --aria-label, labelledby and title, are not really suitable attributes for
> > img alternative text because they implies a label or title, rather than an
> > alternate text, so it is not a semantic equivalent
> > --title is not well supported
> > --some feel that the aria spec is not in any way suggesting these as
> > replacements to ALT.
> > --aria instructs authors to use native html where possible, and they could
> > not come up with viable use cases of omitting alt text
> > --there are hundreds of millions of dollars invested in current evaluation
> > tools, and methodologies, and this would represent a major departure from
> > one of the most basic accessibility convention, that is almost as old as
> > the
> > web and is the "rock star" of accessibility
> > --it could cost a lot of money to change guidance to developers etc..., and
> > muddy the waters on a very efficient current evaluation mechanism
> > --when the figure/legend is supported by AT we can amend F65 but that is a
> > different issue and the semantics of this construct are OK for text
> > alternatives, rather than the label/labelledby/title options
> > --it may cause some confidence problems to WCAG legislation, because it
> > represents a strong loosening to a fundamental Success Criteria, an
> > unnecessary change that doesn't help the cause of accessibility, but just
> > complicates things
> > --ALT is better supported and the text appears when images are turned off.
> > --initial twitter feedback from the community is strongly against changing
> > this failure
> >
> >
> > There are probably other reasons on both sides which we hope to hear ...
> > but
> > these should start it off. Please give your opinions and reasons.
> >
> > Current technique here:
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-TECHS/F65.html
> > Proposed failure here (see test procedure)
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > David MacDonald
> >
> > CanAdapt Solutions Inc.
> > Tel:  613.235.4902
> > http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100
> > www.Can-Adapt.com
> >
> >   Adapting the web to all users
> >             Including those with disabilities
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Received on Monday, 25 November 2013 02:14:12 UTC