Re: Updated ISSUE-206 CP

How about suggesting the use of an aural notification to the screen
readers when an image is reached/passed in the DOM. Something like a
bleep. This goes beyond what we can do here, though it means that
solutions may not always be necessary to be stuck into HTML.

Just my 2c worth. :-)

Cheers,
Silvia.

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 9:26 AM, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:
> (adding the Accessibility TF mailing list to the mix)
>
> Edward O'Connor wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've updated my Change Proposal for ISSUE-206 (meta-generator) based on
>> all the great discussion that's happened on the list since I originally
>> posted it. As before, the Change Proposal is on the WG's wiki here:
>>
>>          http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/User:Eoconnor/ISSUE-206
>
>
> Hi Ted,
>
> One key point that emerged during the list conversation
> (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2012Aug/0067.html) is that
> this new attribute should have, at a minimum, a default accessible name that
> would be conveyed to the Accessibility APIs.
>
> One current effect of applying alt="" is that it silences screen readers
> from attempting to provide a heuristicly derived accessible name
> ("H6rGT8.jpg") and it also loosely maps to role="presentation". If we are to
> create a new attribute that has an impact on this existing legacy behavior,
> we should be providing a default accessible name to offset any attempt to
> heuristically generate one.
>
> Earlier this month I had a series of telephone and skype conversations with
> a number of blind users whom I know personally. All of them have a slightly
> higher-than-average understanding of web technologies, but all are, most
> importantly, daily screen reader users. I was curious to know their thoughts
> on the meta-issue (not the meta tag issue, but the larger discussion), and
> what they would want/expect as a behavior when we tag an image with an
> indicator that a textual equivalent is not available (user-experience). I
> also spoke to a few web accessibility professionals who do not normally
> spend time at the W3C, but who none-the-less spend their time, energy and
> passion on ensuring accessible web content is created (and specifically,
> they were Jared Smith of WebAIM, and Glenda Sims of Deque). The list of
> people I spoke to is limited, and not necessarily representative of all
> screen reader users, but it is/was a start.
>
> UX: the unanimous feedback I heard was that yes, if an important image is on
> a page, and even if there is no textual equivalent provided, that they
> (non-sighted users) want to know of the existence of the image.
>
> *How* we communicate that was less unanimous, but that underlying desire
> does exist. The differences here were centered mostly around cognitive value
> of the feedback (what would the screen reader say?), and the balancing of
> verbosity (overly chatty/too much information actually gets in the way).
> Whether it is because of how I expressed or explained the situation to my
> colleagues I cannot say, but all shared my concern of how/what the UX for
> the non-sighted user would be. One person (Victor Tsaran - Yahoo!) suggested
> that all he would want to hear is "Image" (or "Graphic") with nothing else:
> the end user would then assume or presume that there is something there, and
> seek assistance. Another (Everett Zufelt) suggested that screen readers
> could speak "Image: without description", while others were ambivalent about
> specific wording. All however wanted to ensure that whatever is communicated
> is clear to the end user.
>
> (As an aside, none of the current new attribute proposals address this
> concern, and so all are incomplete at this time IMHO. Any of the 3 new
> attributes will also need to have a mechanism that informs users that "this
> is an important image that lacks any textual alternative", so the
> interaction with AT tools needs to be addressed.)
>
> Ted, I'd be a lot more enthusiastic of your revised Change Proposal if it
> addressed this need.
>
> Cheers!
>
> JF
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Edward O'Connor [mailto:eoconnor@apple.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 2:55 PM
>> To: public-html@w3.org
>> Subject: Updated ISSUE-206 CP
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've updated my Change Proposal for ISSUE-206 (meta-generator) based on
>> all the great discussion that's happened on the list since I originally
>> posted it. As before, the Change Proposal is on the WG's wiki here:
>>
>>          http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/User:Eoconnor/ISSUE-206
>>
>> Many people commented that calling the attribute relaxed="" is
>> problematic, and several other names have been propsed. Based on the
>> design princples in [1], the analysis in [2], and other emails on the
>> subject, I've changed the proposed attribute's name to
>> generator-unknown-alt="".
>>
>> On the plus side, this name is more concise than the very-long
>> generator-unable-to-provide-required-alt="", and it conveys several
>> important facts:
>>
>> 1. the fact that the generator has omitted alt="",
>> 2. that the reason the generator omitted alt="" is that proper alt=""
>>    text is unknown to the generator,
>> 3. and, unlike relaxed="", the name doesn't imply that this feature
>>    could be used for other cases of relaxed validation.
>>
>> On the minus side, it's longer than relaxed="".
>>
>> I haven't altered the Change Proposal with regard to conformance
>> checker
>> behavior. As before, conformance checkers MAY report <img> elements
>> without alt="" even when they have generator-unknown-alt="", but the
>> Change Proposal does not advocate any particular UI for this. I trust
>> Mike and Henri will come up with something better than what I would
>> come
>> up with.
>>
>>
>> Ted
>>
>> 1. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-
>> archive/2012Aug/0004.html
>> 2. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-
>> archive/2012Aug/0038.html
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 22 August 2012 00:19:18 UTC