RE: D-links (was Conformance Testing Proposal)

At 04:40 PM 4/7/2004 -0500, John M Slatin wrote:

>Thanks, Joe, for the good critique.
>
>In fact I'm beginning to think that longdesc is the problem, not the
>d-link.  The problem is that (as far as I'm aware) longdesc is available
>*only* to people who use screen readers or talking browsers that support
>it. If that's true, then extended descriptions that might benefit people
>who have difficulty processing (but not perceiving) complex visual
>materials will be inaccessible to them if it's available only via the
>longdesc.  Using a d-link makes it available to anyone who uses a user
>agent that supports text links.  So I would argue that longdesc should
>be the method of choice only when authors are certain that people who
>are blind are the only ones who will need the description.

I was thinking the same thing lately when I was creating some descriptions 
for my very visual slides: most users would benefit from these descriptions 
not only users who have visual disabilities. However, right now many user 
agents don't offer the longdesc info easily to users or even information 
that it is available. So I selected to use both D-link and longdesc.

Rather than using D-link instead of longdesc I think the user agents should 
be corrected (did not check UAAG but it should be mentioned there).  We 
don't have to think that only screenreaders use longdesc features. I'm sure 
there exists an acceptable way to provide longdesc info to everybody 
interested in all user agents so that those who wish can benefit from it.

Marja

Received on Wednesday, 7 April 2004 22:11:47 UTC