Re: the market hasn't spoken - it hasn't bothered to listened

On Jun 27, 2007, at 9:07 AM, Smylers wrote:

>
> Ben Boyle writes:
>
>> [Lachlan Hunt writes:]
>>
>>> In regards to using longdesc for videos, that seems like it would
>>> encourage the use of "full multimedia text alternatives".  Several
>>> accessibility experts, including Joe Clark, don't approve of such
>>> things for videos.  Instead, they advocate that videos should be
>>> made accessibile through the use of things like captions and audio
>>> descriptions.
>>
>> They absolutely should, but alternatives are still useful.
>> Particularly for people with limited bandwidth, which you know  
>> remains
>> an issue in Australia ;)
>
> And also for people browsing with, say, Lynx.  Or people who don't  
> have
> an appropriate video-playing plug-in for their browser (perhaps  
> because
> the video is in a proprietory format from a different platform).
>
> Accessibility for all should consider readers' technical limitations,
> not just human disabilities.
>
> Smylers
>

However, @longdesc was added to <img> because it doesn't support  
content inn the element itself. <video> and all of the other embedded  
content elements do (with the exception of the newly introduced  
<embed>). So @longdesc is something we should move away from (by  
moving away from <embed> and <img>) and certainly not something we  
need to add to the other embedded content elements. However, @alt may  
be something to consider on these other elements (perhaps, I don't  
know).
\
Take care,
Rob