- From: Robert Burns <rob@robburns.com>
- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:23:09 -0500
- To: Eric Eggert <w3c@yatil.de>
- Cc: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Hi Eric,
On Sep 14, 2007, at 7:25 AM, Eric Eggert wrote:
>
> Tomas Caspers, an German accessibility expert, wanted me to share
> his thoughts about the @longdesc topic with you. He's referring to
> this WHAT WG blog entry: http://blog.whatwg.org/the-longdesc-lottery
>
> Here are Tomas’ thoughts:
>
[ A few anecdotes about the 'longdesc' attribute ....]
>
> Conclusion: I'm sorry folks, but I'm afraid you will have to come
> up with something else other than longdesc.
I don't really understand how anyone can go from Thomas's few
interesting anecdotes to that conclusion. The longdesc attribute is
there to provide a long description of an image embedded with an IMG
element. In many cases it may not be useful at all to provide a long
description. However, for authors that do provide long descriptions
it is an indispensable attribute. For the users who make use of the
attribute and its referenced document fragment it undoubtedly
enhances their user experience.
So I have to ask the question. How does Thomas go from his anecdotes
to the conclusion that we folks must come up with something else
other than lohgdesc? What would that something else do? Make the
blind see? I really don't see what he's saying at all in relation to
the work of this WG. I don't even understand how anything Thomas
wrote could be related to a decision about whether to include a
longdesc attribute or not in HTML5.
Take care,
Rob
Received on Friday, 14 September 2007 13:23:28 UTC