Re: H86: Providing text alternatives for ASCII art, emoticons, and leetspeak

Also as an aside from this is how to use <abbr>. As <acronym> has been 
deprecated, I think there is scope for <abbr> elements to be used as 
hacks for many things.

I'm not making a value judgement here btw - just an observation.

Josh

Steve Faulkner wrote:
> On a somewhat related current webaim thread (where this technique is cited)
> http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?thread=6920
>
> It would be worth considering putting in some advice around use characters
> for decoration or use that is contrary to meaning.
>
> I see this a lot and would be good to have a technique to point to (i feel
> a pull request coming on)
>
> note: html5 has this advice in relation to right angle brackets used as
> breadcrumb markers
>
> The use of the right angle bracket symbol ">" to indicate path direction is
>> discouraged as its meaning, in the context used, is not clearly conveyed to
>> all users.
>>
>
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/common-idioms.html#rel-up
>
> --
>
> Regards
>
> SteveF
> HTML 5.1<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
>
> On 28 April 2015 at 15:55, Andrew Kirkpatrick<akirkpat@adobe.com>  wrote:
>
>>   I agree with questioning whether it is worth calling out Leet.  It may
>> not be our greatest challenge in making accessible content.
>>
>>
>>
>> Re: the leet, I was wondering about the leet text myself earlier and
>> apparently I’m a total 733t n00b (that’s “Leet Noob” for anyone who hasn’t
>> done the extensive 3 minutes of research I have) and wasn’t aware that the
>> “xorz” suffix is for emphasis.
>>
>> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=xorz&defid=952831
>>
>>
>>
>> I’d be ok removing the leet example.  What do people think about example
>> 1?  If all we were left with using abbr were actual examples of
>> unambiguously proper usage of the abbr element that wouldn’t be so bad…
>>
>>
>>
>> AWK
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Steve Faulkner [mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 28, 2015 10:45 AM
>> *To:* Michael Gower
>> *Cc:* Eric Eggert; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: H86: Providing text alternatives for ASCII art, emoticons,
>> and leetspeak
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> checking using a leet speak encoder
>> http://www.robertecker.com/hp/research/leet-converter.php?lang=en
>> Austin Rocks = 4u571n r0ck5 (basic leet)
>>
>> while it is not a bad idea to give examples of how we can provide acess to
>> content for some users, it should be clearly stated that this is only a
>> partial solution and a basic solution that provides equal access should be
>> provided
>>
>> Example:
>>
>> 4u571n r0ck5 (Austin Rocks)
>>
>> on use of<abbr>
>>
>> HTML5 states:
>>
>> The abbr element represents an abbreviation or acronym, optionally with
>> its expansion.
>>
>>
>>
>> if the leet speak is not an abbreviation or acronym it shouldn't be used
>> to provide the alternative.
>>
>> On use of the title attribute: its a notoriously poor UI feature for many
>> reasons:
>>
>> http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2013/01/using-the-html-title-attribute-updated/
>>
>> has details.
>>
>> the HTML5 spec provides a warning about title:
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html/dom.html#the-title-attribute.
>>
>> A related question is: is it worth calling out leet speak? I had to go and
>> look it up, I can't recall seeing it used, but I do live under a rock.
>>
>>
>>     --
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> SteveF
>>
>> HTML 5.1<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28 April 2015 at 15:18, Michael Gower<michael.gower@ca.ibm.com>  wrote:
>>
>> As a new member of this group, I guess I'll take the opportunity to enter
>> the fray on this.
>>
>> "”what’s wrong with the abbr example?”
>> Example three in H86<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H86.html>  is<abbr
>> title="Austin Rocks">Au5t1N r0xx0rz</abbr>
>> The second part of the Leet looks to me like Rocksers -- kind of a mashup
>> of rockers and scissors. I believe the originally point may have been that
>> the English equivalent is not actually "Rocks" (that, or the Leet should be
>> r0(k5 )
>>
>> At any rate, the discussion has now moved to whether ABBR is suitable to
>> use for surfacing ALT. I agree it is a hack. The Leet is not an
>> abbreviation. By the same token, the second item in example 1 should also
>> be removed:<abbr title="fright">=8-0</abbr>
>>
>> However, I'm with Eric on two points: 1) the fact screen readers don't
>> implement something by default is not a reason to not implement the
>> technique if it is legitimate; 2) other folks, including those with
>> cognitive disabilities, can derive benefit from forms of alternative
>> information which are not historically available via the user agent alone.
>>
>> In this situation, the ABBR technique is attractive because it is visually
>> indicated by most user agents (as a minutely dashed underline) and provides
>> an affordance via hover to expose the TITLE information to mouse users. So
>> I think what is called for is for this matter to be flagged to the
>> Cognitive TF so they can deal with the multiple questions involved.
>>
>> Personally, I think using the TITLE as a reinforcement on most uses of ALT
>> makes a lot of sense. TITLE is valid on virtually all elements, so can be
>> added wherever ALT is used to expose the additional meaning to mouse users.
>> My one caution is that I've found that some screen readers will announce
>> both the ALT and TITLE if the strings are not identical. So that would need
>> to be part of the guidance offered.
>>
>> That doesn't solve the lack of strong visual affordance for the TITLE or
>> the problem with keyboard users not being able to expose the value. But as
>> Eric states, "While there may be a user group that isn’t helped using a
>> technique, we shouldn’t rule it out for other user groups."
>>
>> If I've failed to follow any etiquette of the maillist, please feel free
>> to advise me privately.
>>
>> Michael Gower
>> Senior Consultant
>> IBM Accessibility
>>
>> 1803 Douglas Street, Victoria, BC  V8T 5C3
>> gowerm@ca.ibm.com
>> voice: (250) 220-1146 * cel: (250) 661-0098 *  fax: (250) 220-8034
>>
>>
>>
>> From:        "Eric Eggert"<ee@w3.org>
>> To:        "Andrew Kirkpatrick"<akirkpat@adobe.com>
>> Cc:        "David MacDonald"<david100@sympatico.ca>, "Steve Faulkner"<
>> faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, "w3c-wai-gl@w3.org"<w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
>> Date:        04/28/2015 05:52 AM
>> Subject:        Re: H86: Providing text alternatives for ASCII art,
>> emoticons, and   leetspeak
>>   ------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28 Apr 2015, at 14:22, Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:
>>
>>> My question to Steve that he may have missed was ”what’s wrong
>>> with the abbr example?” but David you seem to be raising an argument
>>> for not using abbr, which would suggest also removing H28
>>> (http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20150226/H28).
>> Just a quick thought mainly for the H28 discussion (I am not an ASCII
>> art connoisseur and don’t know exactly about leetspeak):
>>
>> I think this is more a screen reader bug and I would consider adding the
>> information there is better practice than leaving it out completely,
>> even if the user needs to activate the feature in assistive
>> technologies.
>>
>> Also this has implication for people with cognitive disabilities, for
>> example, that can’t get to descriptions. While there may be a user
>> group that isn’t helped using a technique, we shouldn’t rule it out
>> for other user groups. It might also be provided to screen reader users
>> by default in the future.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Eric
>>
>>> Any additional information is appreciated!
>>> Thanks,
>>> AWK
>>>
>>> From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca
>> <david100@sympatico.ca>]
>>> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 6:29 PM
>>> To: Steve Faulkner
>>> Cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: H86: Providing text alternatives for ASCII art,
>>> emoticons, and leetspeak
>>>
>>> Agree that we could drop the abbr. It's kind of a hack, and JAWS has
>>> abbr support turned off by default, so the abbr may not even speak.
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> David MacDonald
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> CanAdapt Solutions Inc.
>>>
>>> Tel:  613.235.4902
>>>
>>> LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100>
>>>
>>> www.Can-Adapt.com<http://www.Can-Adapt.com<http://www.can-adapt.com/>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Adapting the web to all users
>>>           Including those with disabilities
>>>
>>> If you are not the intended recipient, please review our privacy
>>> policy<http://www.davidmacd.com/disclaimer.html>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Steve Faulkner
>>> <faulkner.steve@gmail.com<mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com
>> <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>>>  wrote:
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H86.html
>>>
>>> suggest adding ARIA-fied example (from html5 spec)
>>>
>>> <figure role="img" aria-labelledby="fish-caption"
>>> <pre>
>>> o           .'`/
>>>    '      /  (
>>> O    .-'` ` `'-._      .')
>>>     _/ (o)        '.  .' /
>>>     )       )))><   <
>>>     `\  |_\      _.'  '. \
>>>       '-._  _ .-'       '.)
>>>   jgs     `\__\
>>> </pre>
>>> <figcaption id="fish-caption">
>>>   <cite>Joan G. Stark, "fish"</cite>.
>>>   October 1997. ASCII on electrons. 28×8.
>>> </figcaption>
>>> </figure>
>>>
>>> Also question the use of<abbr>  in this technique:
>>> <abbr title="Austin Rocks">Au5t1N r0xx0rz</abbr>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> SteveF
>>> HTML 5.1<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Eric Eggert
>> Web Accessibility Specialist
>> Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at Wold Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Tuesday, 28 April 2015 16:24:40 UTC