Re: CFC re ISSUE-31 Missing Alt

aloha, ian!

these are the same complaints which you have logged against 
suggestions by individuals and the accessibility community; 
what evidence do you have to back up your claims?

as a blind netizen, i rely on @summary information to make 
very important decisions vis a vis navigation, navigation
within a table, querying for the X/Y coordinates of a data
cell, etc.

given the fact that those who actually use and benefit from 
summary are demanding that -- in the absence of a superior 
mechanism -- @summary should be retained for now as it was 
defined in HTML4, how can your theoretical and highly speculative
objections override a user need?  i thought that HTML5 was supposed
to retain what works or improve upon it -- while work continues 
on an improved mechanism, @summary is used and implemented, so 
why the continued objections in light of the response of those
for whom @summary is an essential tool in the online toolkit?

gregory.
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---------- Original Message -----------
From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
To: Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>
Cc: HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
Sent: Thu, 6 May 2010 00:21:01 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: CFC re ISSUE-31 Missing Alt

> On Wed, 5 May 2010, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > 
> > RESOLUTION: The HTML-A11Y Task Force supports the change proposal at 
> > http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/wiki/Summary_Change_Proposal_Nov_18,_2009 
> > to reinstate table summary as conforming and not +obsolete. We adopt 
> > this recommendation even as we continue engineering work on possible 
> > enhancements to table summary. However,+any enhancements we might 
> > propose would only elaborate on this proposal and, most particularly, 
> > would not remove the support +for author provided text as has been 
> > present in HTML4. Thus this recommendation serves as our baseline of 
> > table summary support.
> 
> I object on the grounds that there's no evidence that there are 
> authors who:
> 
>  * have tables complicated enough that non-visual users need a 
>    description, and
> 
>  * are able to write a description, and
> 
>  * are not willing to expose this description to all users, and
> 
>  * are not willing to use CSS techniques or <details> to hide 
> the    information from the default visual presentation, and
> 
>  * will remember to update the attribute when the table changes.
> 
> There is, however, ample evidence that authors who are convinced 
> (by advocacy) that they fall into the above situation in fact 
> fail to fall into it, and end up creating harmful content. There 
> is also ample evidence that having the attribute present 
> encourages authors to include descriptions when they are not 
> necessary, wasting their time and the time of their AT-using readers.
> 
> Therefore, having the attribute causes more harm than not having 
> it.
> 
> -- 
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,
> '``.    fL http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,  
>  _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take 
> longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
------- End of Original Message -------

Received on Thursday, 6 May 2010 14:58:13 UTC