- From: Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 10:08:47 +0100
- To: Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc>
- Cc: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Hi Jonas, I am unclear about what you are saying here: "My concern is that with this definition of alt, we'd instantly not only make a large body of content inaccessible. We'd also do AT users a disservice by telling AT software to hide the fact that there is an image there since the alt attribute was used." which definition of alt? In what context would we instantly make a large body of content inaccessible? regards stevef On 7 May 2010 10:03, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote: > On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Steven Faulkner > <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote: >> Hi Anne,>but it seems that in Example 2.3 it is not explained what >> >>> the advantage of including an alternative text in the first place is. If >>> there is a full description it seems one could just use alt="". >> >> The description is an alternative interpretation of the flowchart. if >> alt="" was used the image would be removed from the accessibility tree >> for AT users, which is incorrect, the image is not meaningless, it >> contains information which a range of users could interpret with the >> aid of the short text alternative and longer description. >> >> The alt in this case provides an accessible name for the image that >> identifies the image for users AT users. It also provides a text >> alternative for users who have images turned off in their browsers, so >> they can if they wish load and view the image. If alt="" was used >> there would be no indication that an image was there. >> >> please file a bug if you aren't satisfied with my reasoning. > > It would be very interesting to see research on how people use alt > today. I would think there is a not insignificant amount of content > out there where the 'alt' attribute contains a description rather than > true alternative text. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was > the case in the majority of cases when alt is used. > > My concern is that with this definition of alt, we'd instantly not > only make a large body of content inaccessible. We'd also do AT users > a disservice by telling AT software to hide the fact that there is an > image there since the alt attribute was used. > > / Jonas > -- with regards Steve Faulkner Technical Director - TPG Europe Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium www.paciellogroup.com | www.wat-c.org Web Accessibility Toolbar - http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
Received on Friday, 7 May 2010 09:09:38 UTC