Success, Failure techniques - side issue for discussion

Hi.
I would like to drop in a  (very rough) example to explain why I am concerned that we are getting hung up on the techniques used by the developers rather than the procedures used by the evaluator.

Case 1
<ol>
<li>Here is a picture of Uncle Fred wearing his bright Christmas Jumper <img src=”fred.jpg”></li>
<li>Here is a picture of Aunt Mary setting fire to the Christmas pudding <img src=”mary.jpg”</li>
<ol>

Case 2
<ol>
<li><img src=”fred.jpg” alt =”Uncle Fred”></li>
<li><img src=”mary.jpg” alt = “Aunt Mary”> </li>
</ol>

Now case 2 employs the “alt” attribute, so it meets a success technique (even though it is less informative than case 1)

If Example 1 were links (using the < a > element) it would also pass muster (H2 Combining adjacent image and text links), but it is not a link and there is no documentation (that I know of) within WCAG about this specific situation (within the <li> element).

NOW here is the rub. – Failure F65 says that both my example 2 and H2 are failures because neither use the alt attribute !!!!   So if I rely on Failure Techniques I would fail both my example 2 and anything using H2.

HOWEVER – using testing procedures I can check that example 1 passes because it has (reasonably) meaningful alt attributes;  whilst example 2 passes because it makes perfect sense when read out by my screen reader, my blind testers confirm it is good, it still makes sense if the image fails to display. The only thing about example 2 is that Google will not catalogue the image (which might be a good thing !)


So I return to my original thought that step 1e should be about procedures not techniques.

Bets wishes
Richard