Re: the market hasn't spoken - it hasn't bothered to listened [was Re: fear of "invisible metadata"]

Robert Burns writes:

> On Jun 26, 2007, at 11:25 AM, Smylers wrote:
> 
> > Robert Burns writes:
> > 
> > > <object
> > > 	data="foo.mpeg"
> > > 	alt="My kitten fluffy playing with yarn."
> > > 	title="fluffy playing with yarn"
> > > > Fluffy, still only a few inches tall, is playing with a red ball
> > > of yarn that has to 3 times her size. She has just fallen on her back
> > > and it looks like the ball of yarn is crushing her. But she's really
> > > just having fun. </object> 
> > >
> > > Do the two character strings look different to you in this example?
> > 
> > Yes, those are different.
> > 
> > But it isn't clear to me under what circumstances having both these
> > alternative representations available is advantageous.
> 
> Well, I was adding the @title attribute to push the discussion a bit.

Ooops, I wasn't looking at title, and my previous comment was based only
on the alt attribute and the enclosed fallback content (I stand by it
though).

> As for @alt, it may bet that an aural browser user might want to hear
> a little snippet like that @alt attribute before deciding what order
> to consume the embedded elements in.

That would mean that:

* The enclosed fallback content is a true alternative to the video (or
  whatever) that cannot be viewed.

* The alt attribute is a summary of that fallback content.

I'm not going to argue against having both of those things (though I
question authors' enthusiasm for providing them), but they'd need better
names: in no way does alt="" suggest that it's a summary of the true
alternative content, which can be found elsewhere.

Smylers

Received on Tuesday, 26 June 2007 21:48:26 UTC