Re: Proposal for <canvas src> to allow images with structured fallback by Tab Atkins Jr.

Hi Leif,

> only because graphical UAs don't search or copy the fallback.

Yes.

The thing is that longdesc is available to any user agent that wants
to make it available to its users. I filed a bug for "Native user
agent support for exposing longdesc to all users" last spring [1].

As stated in the change proposal [2], access to the content of the
longdesc attribute for the sighted should be similar to television
closed captions. Closed captions are encoded or invisible to the
sighted by default and must be decoded or made visible. There is a
reason that closed captions (as opposed to open captions) are the
default on televisions. Sighted people rarely require them. To them,
they are visual noise. Clutter. Redundant. But if a sighted person
wants to enable closed captions (longdesc is not hidden meta-data [3])
they can do so via a user preference built into the system menu. It is
a user choice. Televisions do not have a default on-screen visual
indicator. There is no forced visual encumbrance. This is by design.

Best Regards,
Laura

[1] http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10019
[2] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc
[3] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc#Hidden_Meta-data_Fallacy

Received on Friday, 11 March 2011 15:58:30 UTC