Re: aside and figure elements

If the main aim of <figure><figcaption> etc is to ensure that
images/video/tables/content blocks have captions then would a combination of
an ID and something like the for="" as used in form labels suffice?

Example 1 - Image only:

<img id="img100" alt="A dog on a bike.">
<caption for="img100">Proof that animals can ride bikes</caption>

The author could then choose whether the alt text should match the caption
as I can find reasons why it would and wouldn’t.

Example 2 - Image and Table:

<aside id="aside100" >
<img alt="A dog on a bike.">
<table>
<tr><td>Dogs Bike</td><td>£50.00</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cats Bike</td><td>£40.00</td></tr>
<tr><td>Budgies Bike</td><td>£30.00</td></tr>
</table>
</aside>
<caption for="aside100">Our three best selling animal bikes</caption>

(Possibly using JavaScript or CSS on rollover of the rows to show <img
alt="A cat on a bike.">, <img alt="A budgie on a bike.">)

I have deliberately added this to an <aside> to show that even <asides> may
need captions.
Also as a real world example as this could easily be in the right hand
column of a page about cycling animals.
It could equally have been in the main copy as <article id="art100"> +
<caption for="art100">

At one of my companies we have gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure
that our CMS maintains best practice without the less technical users being
aware (when adding images to the image library the "Friendly name" becomes
the alt text) but the more technical users have the option to over-ride this
in the advanced interface. An example would be <img alt=“Nice cat”>
appearing as <div class=”caption”>Nice cat</div> below the image
automatically with an Advanced option to edit the caption on or after adding
the image. We still have trouble getting people to use headings in the
correct order of course and this is my point, not all content providers are
technical and will struggle to use "unclearly defined" mark-up correctly.
Please note the difference between unclear and complex.
Please also note the Budgies Bikes go cheap!

Regards,
Dean Leigh

Received on Monday, 7 June 2010 22:00:58 UTC