Re: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update

Silvia Pfeiffer, Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:41:14 +1000:
> A hand-waving mention of "revealing the attribute to the UA" and "user
> preferences, options etc." is exactly what I want to avoid. I would
> prefer we say something informative and non-normative such as:
> 
> Long image descriptions should be made available to the user through a
> visual indicator.


What do non-sighted users do?  What happens in an aural browser?

Why doesn't the language simply state that "a long description of <this image> is <over there>", for those that need the long description?  That population might include:

* people using UAs that cannot render the format of the image (e.g. JPEG 2000)
* people using text-only UAs
* people with vision impairments
* people whose eyes are elsewhere (i.e. they are focusing on something else)
* people using aural browsers
* people who can see the image but can't understand what it is trying to convey
* people who think they do but want every nuance out of the image

well, you get the message.  I am sure that there are more cases.

The important thing is that the availability of a long description should be indicated by suitable means (e.g. "want a description or fries with that?" for spoken browsers).

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Monday, 24 September 2012 18:23:26 UTC