Re: EOWG Comments on longdesc

Dear EOWG,

Thank you for your feedback on the spec. I am sorry it has taken so long  
to provide an official response, but here it is.

We found the vast majority of your suggestions very helpful and will  
incorporate them into the specification. Below are replies to individual  
suggestions where we feel it is important to clarify, or where we will not  
be incorporating your suggestions.

> * Add "This section is non-normative." to main non-normative sections.  
> (We see a sentence about this later, but are concerned it's not clear  
> enough. For example, the first section under 3. The longdesc attribute  
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc/#longdesc> starts with a sentence  
> that is not clearly a "Note" (e.g., not offset, marked up, and preceded  
> with "Note:"...")
>

In the specific example, that statement is not normative, so instead we  
will remove the words "Note that" at the beginning. We believe that all  
other non-normative sections are identified as such, but will double-check.

> * Introduction: Provide a little context at the beginning, briefly  
> explaining what long descriptions are. For suggested wording, see the  
> Image concepts page <http://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/> (note the  
> lower sections have "Why is this important" and "How to make images  
> accessible") and Complex  
> images<http://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/complex>.

We will add more information in the introduction as suggested. However the  
pages you suggested do not appear stable enough to be a reference in this  
document, so we will not link specifically to them.

> *Suggested edit to the paragraph under Use Cases and Requirements  
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc/#UCnR>: "Text alternatives are  
> required so that users can successfully understand and interact with  
> images even if they cannot see, or see well. The alt attribute is  
> designed to contain a short description. This is sufficient for most  
> images, and should provide enough information to ensure that users  
> understand the image's purpose. Some images contain more information  
> than can effectively be provided in a short description. The longdesc  
> attribute is designed for longer descriptions to meet use cases such as  
> the following." — although, some of this information may be better in  
> the Introduction per previous comment...

Whether an image needs a long description can depend on context as well as  
the image itself. Alt is designed to provide a functional replacement  
text, not a short description. In many cases text alternatives are not  
necessary to support interaction. We therefore do not propose to adopt  
this edit.

> * Current wording: "This document does not define the term "accessible"  
> nor accessibility, but uses them with the sense they have in [WCAG]"  
> Change reference from WCAG to Introduction to Web Accessibility  
> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility> then can say more directly:  
> "This document does not define the terms "accessible" or  
> "accessibility"; it uses them as explained in Introduction to Web  
> Accessibility.

That document referenced has no apparent stability or persistence policy.  
For a reference we prefer to use a W3C Recommendation which has both.

> * The Abstract says "Note that by allowing a hyperlink inside another  
> one, this document explicitly redefines the HTML concept of hyperlink in  
> a limited set of circumstances." Is this point clearly addressed in the  
> main document?

Yes. It is in the section mentioned in your first comment above (Section  
3). Note that we propose to remove the confusing lead-in "Note that" in  
the relevant paragraph.

Please let us know if you are satisfied with our response.

cheers

Chaals
TF co-coordinator


On Tue, 17 Sep 2013 01:13:44 +0400, Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org> wrote:

> Dear HTML Accessibility Task Force,
>
> Thank you for the opportunity to review HTML5 Image Description  
> Extension (longdesc)
> W3C Last Call Working Draft 16 July 2013  
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-html-longdesc-20130716/>.
>
> EOWG has several suggestions from an education and outreach perspective,  
> below.
>
> * Add "This section is non-normative." to main non-normative sections.  
> (We see a sentence about this later, but are concerned it's not clear  
> enough. For example, the first section under 3. The longdesc attribute  
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc/#longdesc> starts with a sentence  
> that is not clearly a "Note" (e.g., not offset, marked up, and preceded  
> with "Note:"...")
>
> * Introduction: Provide a little context at the beginning, briefly  
> explaining what long descriptions are. For suggested wording, see the  
> Image concepts page <http://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/> (note the  
> lower sections have "Why is this important" and "How to make images  
> accessible") and Complex  
> images<http://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/complex>. Consider  
> pointing to these pages for more information (although will need to  
> check timing if it's still a draft and if Shadi & Bim are comfortable).
>
> *Suggested edit to the paragraph under Use Cases and Requirements  
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc/#UCnR>: "Text alternatives are  
> required so that users can successfully understand and interact with  
> images even if they cannot see, or see well. The alt attribute is  
> designed to contain a short description. This is sufficient for most  
> images, and should provide enough information to ensure that users  
> understand the image's purpose. Some images contain more information  
> than can effectively be provided in a short description. The longdesc  
> attribute is designed for longer descriptions to meet use cases such as  
> the following." — although, some of this information may be better in  
> the Introduction per previous comment...
>
> *Remove title from examples. (rationale: Using a title attribute in  
> examples, even non-normative examples, could lead to proliferation of  
> this technique via copy and paste. Use of title attributes is  
> specifically ruled out in the 'HTML5: Techniques for providing useful  
> text alternatives' draft  
> <http://dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/#secm7>.)
>
> *Flow of Use Cases and Requirements: When reading the doc top to bottom,  
> the "Requires:..." and "Helped by:..." under Use Cases do not make  
> sense. It's only when you get to the next section that they make sense.  
> Consider switching the sections around or explaining it.
>
> *The items under "Requirements for an Image Description functionality"  
> seem in random order. Is there a way to provide some structure or flow  
> to them? (If there's nothing else, at least alphabetical order would  
> help people reading the use cases and jumping down to the requirements  
> to see the description of the things after Requires & Helped by.)
>
> * Current wording: "This document does not define the term "accessible"  
> nor accessibility, but uses them with the sense they have in [WCAG]"  
> Change reference from WCAG to Introduction to Web Accessibility  
> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility> then can say more directly:  
> "This document does not define the terms "accessible" or  
> "accessibility"; it uses them as explained in Introduction to Web  
> Accessibility.
>
> * "Localizing" is not as well understood as "Translating"; therefore for  
> the last use case, we suggest changing "Localizing" to "Translating".  
> (also, could simply to "When content is translated to different  
> languages"
>
> * The Abstract says "Note that by allowing a hyperlink inside another  
> one, this document explicitly redefines the HTML concept of hyperlink in  
> a limited set of circumstances." Is this point clearly addressed in the  
> main document? (Generally, the abstract is a summary and shouldn't have  
> info that is not elsewhere.)
>
> * copyediting:
>
> - Suggest change "As well as sections marked as non-normative, all  
> authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this  
> specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification  
> is normative." to "All authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, notes,  
> and sections marked non-normative in this specification are  
> non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
>
> -Write out IDL on first reference.
>
> -Quote terms as follows:
> The key words "must", "should", and "may" in this specification are to  
> be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
> This document does not define the terms "accessible" or "accessibility"  
> (and change 'term' to "terms" and 'nor' to 'or'.)
>
> -Use consistent capitalization in the headings.
>
> - Under Use Case, last one has "it is important that metadata intended  
> for human consumption". That seemed a bit awkward to some. Consider  
> changing it to "it is important that metadata intended for people to  
> read" or "it is important that metadata intended for humans" or such.
>
> - "Authors should put descriptions within an element which is the target  
> of a fragment link (e.g. longdesc="example.html#description") if a  
> description is only part of the target document." is a bit hard to  
> understand. Can you flip it around and say something like: "'When a  
> description is only part of the target document, authors should include  
> the [fragment link] in the element (e.g.,  
> longdesc="example.html#description")."
>
> ###
>
> (Note: These comments do not necessarily represent consensus among all  
> of EOWG, because not all participants were available to review the  
> comments before we submitted them.)
>
> Regards,
> ~Shawn Henry
> for EOWG <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/EOWG-members.html>
>
>
>
> -----
> Shawn Lawton Henry
> W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
> e-mail: shawn@w3.org
> phone: +1.617.395.7664
> about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/
>
>
>


-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Wednesday, 11 December 2013 10:15:55 UTC