Re: ISSUE-31 Change Proposal

hi Ian,


 * >I do not think it is a good idea to make sighted people e-mailing
   >other sighted people privately have to either include alt="" text, or
   >have to write a spec that overrides this one. There's really no reason
   >to include alt text in that case.

a few comments/questions

1. you provide a number of use cases in the spec for why alt texts should be
provided, why is the 'sighted people' argument the sole justification for
not requiring alt text in this case?

2. By your reasoning there should be a whole range of caveats throughout the
specification on authoring conformance requirements in respect to sighted
people emailing each other.

For example why should one:
* provide headings using Hx elements
* provide fallback for canvas
* provide alt on area elements
* not use the address element for information other than contact
information.
* not use the blockquote for indenting text

3. Why is the "sighted people e-mailing other sighted people privately" use
case singled out for special consideration, when there are many uses cases
for html being created in controlled environments, where the authoring
conformance rules in html5 may not appear to be needed?

regards
stevef

On 28 January 2010 22:09, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Laura Carlson wrote:
> >
> > I have drafted a Change Proposal for HTML ISSUE-31.
> >
> > Summary:
> > The current guidance for conformance checkers for Section 4.8.2.1 the
> > img element is unclear and does not implement WAI CG's advice on the
> > validation of short text alternatives. This change proposal replaces
> > the current guidance with clear guidance that lists all required short
> > text alternative options that exist to be considered valid. It enables
> > automatic validators to programmatically detect the presence or
> > absence of text alternatives.
> >
> > Full proposal is at:
> > http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ChangeProposals/ImgElement20090126
> >
> > Ideas for improvement are most welcome.
>
> Is there a bug that this corresponds to? Off-hand I couldn't see any
> reason I would reject the editorial aspects of this proposal, and it would
> be quickest for everyone if we could just deal with the uncontroversial
> aspects in a bug rather than through the big process.
>
> Regarding the proposed normative changes, I disagree with several things:
>
>  * Making the presence of ARIA attributes make otherwise invalid HTML
>    valid. ARIA is only exposed to AT tools, but we need to make sure it
>    is possible to have an accessible experience even without use of an
>    AT, which means pages have to be conforming without using ARIA. ARIA
>    adds to the experience, but shouldn't be required to understand the
>    page.
>
>  * Adding an attribute whose exclusive purpose is shutting up a
>    validator. I do not believe this will result in an improvement in
>    accessibility. The one attribute from HTML4 that was like this (nohref
>    on the <area> element) was dropped in HTML5 because it turns out to
>    have not worked. I think it would be bad to make that mistake again.
>    (Even worse would be to add _two_ such attributes on the same element,
>    as is proposed here.)
>
>  * I do not think it is a good idea to make sighted people e-mailing
>    other sighted people privately have to either include alt="" text, or
>    have to write a spec that overrides this one. There's really no reason
>    to include alt text in that case.
>
>  * There are images whose contents are not known; just not catering for
>    that use case is not acceptable, IMHO.
>
> We should probably split these issues out into four (or more) separate
> change proposals though, rather than try to discuss them all at once,
> since they are somewhat orthogonal to each other.
>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>
>


-- 
with regards

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

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