Re: feedback requested on WAI CG Consensus Resolutions on Text alternatives in HTML 5 document

hi henri,
>I noticed that your question was addressed to Ian and CCed to public lists,
but I'll go ahead and reply myself >anyway:

it was addressed to ian "and other interested people", to ian in particular
as he is the one who makes the decisions.

regards
steve

2009/8/16 Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>

> On Aug 15, 2009, at 15:52, Steven Faulkner wrote:
>
> as part of my work on http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/actions/131, to
>> progress towards consensus by the html wg on the contents of the html 5
>> specification in regards to text alternatives, it would be helpful to get
>> feedback from you and other interested people on the  'WAI CG Consensus
>> Resolutions on Text alternatives in HTML 5' documenthttp://
>> www.w3.org/2009/06/Text-Alternatives-in-HTML5
>>
>
>
> I noticed that your question was addressed to Ian and CCed to public lists,
> but I'll go ahead and reply myself anyway:
>
> I previously asked for clarifications on the WAI CG consensus:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2009Jul/0057.html
>
> However, I didn't get further replies after:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2009Jul/0087.html
>
> Therefore, I'd like to reiterate the following point:
>
> I think it doesn't make sense to evaluate the statement of consensus in
> isolation of knowing what ATAG 2.0 or its accompanying documents are going
> to recommend to developers of HTML5 editors.
>
> I think the following procedure should be followed:
>
>  1) Find out how browser/AT combinations behave given various combinations
> of <img>, alt, lack of alt, empty alt, aria-label, title, aria-describedby,
> etc.
>
>  2) Given the existing client behaviors discovered at step #1, develop
> authoring tool guidance for different scenarios of the authoring tool user
> being cooperative and uncooperative. In particular, develop guidance on what
> markup and authoring tool must emit when the user doesn't provide text
> alternatives (for whatever reason).
>
>  3) Adjust the HTML 5 specification so that following the guidance
> developed in step #2 doesn't render the output document of the editor
> invalid, because it would be non-sensical for one spec to tell authoring
> tool developers "do X" and another to tell "don't do X" and making some
> syntax invalid would make some tool vendors avoid the syntax even if doing
> so lead to a worse outcome considering step #1. (Note that defining a markup
> construct as invalid by definition means that authoring tools must not emit
> that markup construct.)
>
>  4) Adjust validators to comply with the result of step #3, so that output
> from tools complying with guidance from step #2 isn't reported as invalid.
>
>  5) Provide optional diagnostic help for validator users who wish to
> evaluate text alternatives or lack thereof in a way that doesn't motivate
> authoring tool vendors to fail to comply with the guidance from step #2.
> (Consider the Image Report feature of Validator.nu.)
>
> As far as I can tell, the WAI Consensus jumps to step #3 leaving step #2
> unclear.
>
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivonen@iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
>
>
>


-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

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