Re: Comment on WCAG 2.0

Jason,
There are too many people who think they can use images to stylize text
and just use ALT text to make it accessible. This is a big problem for low
vision users:

1. Most popular browsers do not support the rendering of ALT text for area
elements.  I just reviewed a web site that the developers thought was
accessible (passed some level of WCAG) and I told them it was not
functaionally accessible because they used AREA elements to define links
and they are not rendered by Opera 6.0, IE 6.0 or Netscape 6.2 when
images are configured to be turned off.

2. Control over the styling of ALT text is limited in many browsers.  For
example IE does not provide much control over styling, so the text is
often very small when compared to other text in a high contrast rendering.
Users cannot make it bigger, even when adding user style sheets.

3. I also think that using images to stylize text promotes a graphical
view of the web.  People can think "I can use images all I want and be
accessible by putting in ALT text".  I think this should not be considered
good practice for accessible designs.


So I think a more general checkpoint would be to not use images to stylize
text.  This provides an accessible design oriented requirement, rather
than the current repair oriented requirement of providing text equivalents
for non-text content.

Jon



On Sat, 4 May 2002, Jason White wrote:

> Jon Gunderson writes:
>  > I think there needs to be a requirement at the checkpoint level to style
>  > text using CSS and not through the use of images.  I think this is a
>  > critical design decision in making web pages more accessible, especially to
>  > people with low vision.
>
> Since in WCAG 2.0 we aren't including any technology-specific
> requirements at the checkpoint level, but instead generalizing them so
> as to apply across relevant technologies, what would you suggest as an
> appropriate checkpoint to meet the need which the above example
> illustrates? What is the accessibility problem, is it covered by any
> of our existing checkpoints, and if not, what is the general access
> requirement that is missing from the guidelines?
>
> Perhaps guideline 5 would be pertinent here, as its purpose is to
> discuss technical robustness; or maybe  guideline 1?
>
> Either way, the techniques documents (especially CSS techniques) will
> discuss style sheets in detail.
>
> There are still issues of backward compatibility and choice of
> technology under guideline 5 to be worked out.
>
> The most important point is to identify, at a fundamental level, what
> the requirement is, independently of specific technologies, and to
> make sure it is specified appropriately in the guidelines.
>

Received on Saturday, 4 May 2002 12:04:59 UTC