[Bug 26870] clarify relationship with title attribute

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=26870

--- Comment #1 from steve faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> ---
(In reply to Liam R E Quin from comment #0)
> Although use of the title attirbute to convey information through tooltips
> has accessibility problems (and is inconvenient for many users bcause you
> can't easily copy the text), older browsers display alt text as a tooltip in
> the way that newer browsers use title, so it would be helpful for the alt
> text spec to clarify the difference as part of helping people to write alt
> attributes.

I believe that it is one older browser IE, which stopped this behaviour after
IE7.

I have been testing and writing about title attribute issues since 2005.
Archived articles [1]. There are also numerous resolved HTML WG issues in
regards to the HTML spec advice [2] & [3].


The current alt doc includes the following informative advice:


 "2.6 The img element title attribute

 The title attribute must not be used to provide a text alternative for an 
image. The title attribute must not be used to provide a caption for an image; 
use the figure and figcaption elements to provide a caption, as described
above."

This reflects the intent of the normative requirements in HTML5 which state
that the only conforming methods to provide a text alternative for an image is
via the alt attribute or the figcaption element (under specific
circumstances)[4]

the HTML5 spec also has a normative requirement on implementers[5]:

"The alt attribute does not represent advisory information. User agents must
not present the contents of the alt attribute in the same way as content of the
title attribute."

and a warning for developers on use of title attribute (in general) for
displaying text content to users [6]:

"Relying on the title attribute is currently discouraged as many user agents do
not expose the attribute in an accessible manner as required by this
specification (e.g. requiring a pointing device such as a mouse to cause a
tooltip to appear, which excludes keyboard-only users and touch-only users,
such as anyone with a modern phone or tablet)."


What additional value would adding a note about alt being displayed as a
tooltip in a legacy browser bring?



[1] http://www.paciellogroup.com/?s=title+attribute 
[2] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/192
[3] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/80
[4]
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/CR/embedded-content-0.html#guidance-for-conformance-checkers
[5]
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/CR/embedded-content-0.html#the-img-element
[6]http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/CR/dom.html#the-title-attribute

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Received on Wednesday, 15 October 2014 09:12:11 UTC