Re: ISSUE-66 Change Proposal: be more explicit about potential repair techniques

I guess I should also ask: how do others who supported Matt's original  
Change Proposal, or some compromise version, feel about this proposal?

Regards,
Maciej

On Mar 9, 2010, at 3:43 PM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

>
> Ian, are you willing to make the revision Matt suggests?
>
> Matt, thanks for being flexible about the range of solutions.
>
> Regards,
> Maciej
>
> On Mar 9, 2010, at 2:52 PM, Matt May wrote:
>
>> I'm willing to accept this change proposal. It covers what can be  
>> done
>> to images in greater detail, without making it sound like good-enough
>> repair for missing alt.
>>
>> One issue I have, though, is that many of the features mentioned are
>> more likely to be cloud services than they are to be embedded in a
>> browser. If the CP can make it clearer that these could be either
>> native features of the browser, links to services running in the
>> cloud, or assistive technologies that extend the browsing experience,
>> I would fully support this proposal and withdraw my own.
>>
>> -
>> m
>>
>> On Mar 9, 2010, at 4:46 AM, "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> SUMMARY
>>>
>>> The spec is very vague about what image analysis techniques could be
>>> applied to images. This change proposal suggests including more  
>>> detail
>>> about possible techniques.
>>>
>>>
>>> RATIONALE
>>>
>>> Currently the <img> element section mentions that UAs "may also  
>>> apply
>>> heuristics to help the user make use of the image when the user is
>>> unable
>>> to see it", but the only suggested heuristic is OCR.
>>>
>>> In practice, there are a host of other heuristics that could help a
>>> user
>>> make sense of an image, and they might be useful even to users who
>>> _can_
>>> see the image. We do all users a disservice by not being more  
>>> explicit
>>> here. Being explicit could encourage significant competition amongst
>>> user
>>> agents, leading to a much better user experience for everyone.
>>>
>>> Since these heuristics are in many cases already implemented and
>>> shipping,
>>> sometimes in multiple products from multiple vendors, and since  
>>> recent
>>> advances in image recognition techniques have been fast and furious,
>>> it
>>> seems reasonable to mention these techniques as real possibilities.
>>>
>>>
>>> DETAILS
>>>
>>> Strike "when the user is unable to see it". Instead, start a new
>>> sentence
>>> before the "e.g", which says "This would be especially useful to
>>> users who
>>> cannot see the image", and add the following after the "e.g."
>>> clauses, in
>>> a separate clause: "but it could also be useful to users who _can_
>>> see the
>>> image, but might not fully understand or recognise it".
>>>
>>> Move "optical character recognition (OCR) of text found within the
>>> image"
>>> to be the first bullet of a bulleted list, and add the following
>>> additional points:
>>>
>>> * Facial recognition in photographs, especially facial recognition
>>> of
>>>   notable individuals or of individuals in the user's social
>>> network.
>>>
>>> * Product or brand recognition in photographs or logos.
>>>
>>> * Barcode recognition of any embedded barcodes.
>>>
>>> * Bitmap to vector analysis for diagrams, allowing images to be
>>>   further analysed in specialised tools.
>>>
>>> * Data extraction for graphs, allowing data to be reconstructed from
>>>   bar charts, pie charts, and the like, or allowing regression lines
>>>   to be fitted to x,y plots.
>>>
>>> * Landmark recognition for photographs.
>>>
>>> * 3D reconstruction of scenes based on multiple images, allowing a
>>> set
>>>   of images to be taken together and explored in context.
>>>
>>>
>>> IMPACT
>>>
>>> POSITIVE EFFECTS
>>>
>>> Adding such text could lead to a renewed level of competition in
>>> browsers
>>> as they find the best ways to expose such tools to users.
>>>
>>> Such competition would inevitably lead to improved accessibility
>>> across
>>> the board, as many of these analysis techniques could provide users
>>> with
>>> anything from a basic hint of the image's contents to fully-
>>> interactive
>>> reconstructions of the image in more accessible forms (especially in
>>> the
>>> case of text-in-image or graphs).
>>>
>>> NEGATIVE EFFECTS
>>>
>>> Makes the spec longer.
>>>
>>> CONFORMANCE CLASS CHANGES
>>>
>>> None.
>>>
>>> RISKS
>>>
>>> It is suggested that mentioning that user agents might be able to
>>> repair
>>> non-conforming pages could make authors less likely to write
>>> conforming
>>> pages, though it is not clear why this would apply here and not in  
>>> the
>>> many other parts of the spec that mention repair techniques,
>>> especially
>>> the sections that explicitly mandate specific user agent repair
>>> techniques.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )
>>> \._.,--....,'``.    fL
>>> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _
>>> \  ;`._ ,.
>>> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--
>>> (,_..'`-.;.'
>>>
>>
>

Received on Tuesday, 9 March 2010 23:45:28 UTC