Re: D-links (was Conformance Testing Proposal)

With regard to this discussion, I would agree that if the photo collage on
the page [1] were described in some form other than "just" using the alt
tag, it would be more clear as to what it is one is viewing.  It's a collage
of many different photographs and I do not believe the alt tags alone really
give a screen reader user the real picture.

In the case of [2], the captions on these photographs COULD work but the
ones that exist do not really describe the photographs.  For example,
somebody lays it on - what's that mean?

The one thing I will say is that when we give explicit examples as
techniques or whatever and the rules change down the road, authors are going
to be less likely to listen.

doyle

[1] http://leavesrustle.com/photos/?album=UpNorth2003
[2] http://photomatt.net/photos/log/3-12-2004

On 4/7/04 1:54 PM, "John M Slatin" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

> 
> Sorry, Joe, just went to the first of the sites you listed and I don't
> get it.  What would prevent the person who owns that page from providing
> a meaningful text link to text that describes the images?  If the page
> is generated by some kind of album application, the application could
> prompt for the description and build a link to it; if there's a template
> into which the content flows, the template could be designed to
> accommodate the text link. Would most people use such features if they
> existed? Probably not.  But most people who put up sites like this
> aren't trying to make conformance claims anyway.  Still, it would be
> nice if the applications they use gave them the option to do it in a
> meaningful way.
> 
> (And, btw, the pulldown menu at the bottom of the page appears to have
> an onchange handler...)
> 
> On the second site you listed, again there's nothing to prevent
> providing a meaningful text link to a description.  The images have alt
> attributes, but they're not really valid: each <img> is a link, and you
> can't put null alt on a graphical link.  So they *could* make the image
> a link to the enlarged view of itself, and make the text caption link to
> a text description.  If they wanted to.
> 
> 
> "Good design is accessible design."
> Please note our new name and URL!
> John Slatin, Ph.D.
> Director, Accessibility Institute
> University of Texas at Austin
> FAC 248C
> 1 University Station G9600
> Austin, TX 78712
> ph 512-495-4288, f 512-495-4524
> email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu
> web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Joe Clark
> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 4:06 pm
> To: WAI-GL
> Subject: D-links (was Conformance Testing Proposal)
> 
> 
> 
>> Some comments about longdesc and d-links:
>> 1. We should not *require* redundant use of longdesc *and* d-link for
>> <img> elements that need additional description.   If support for
>> longdesc isn't widespread enough to be reliable,
> 
> Well, what do you mean by that?
> 
> The user agent that WCAG WG has historically custom-crafted its
> guidelines to cater to, Jaws on IE for Windows, can read a longdesc.
> Window-Eyes supports it. You can read longdescs in Mozilla. There are
> other implementations, for all I know. (iCab, even, not that it really
> counts.)
> 
> It's in the spec. Some user agents support it, and the rest of them are
> gonna have to eventually.
> 
> The D-link option was always a kludge and simply is not justifiable. It
> is
> extra-specification: To endorse it is to concede that the HTML spec
> isn't good enough. It says the spec is so bad, in fact, that we have to
> recommend nonstandard workarounds. Well, why?
> 
>> we should require that
>> descriptions be provided either on-page or in a separate, linked
>> file/window.
> 
> I think not.
> 
>> 2. On pages that display multiple images that require description,
>> link-text pointing to the descriptions should identify the image to
>> which the description refers.
> 
> How's that gonna work on photoblog pages with valid code and correct
> alt-text usage?
> 
> <http://leavesrustle.com/photos/?album=UpNorth2003>
> 
> <http://photomatt.net/photos/log/3-12-2004>
> (using null alt text when adjacent text does the job)
> 
> Where are you gonna put 20 letter Ds?
> 
> <http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter06.html#d-links>
> (Hi, Chris!)
> 
> Let's stick to the spec.

Received on Wednesday, 7 April 2004 19:45:37 UTC