Re: summarization information delivery options: attribute or element

Hi Laura,

>The danger of broadening the scope and distorting the
> purpose of @summary to include everyone is that discussions can
> quickly degenerate and lose focus, rather than addressing the initial
> use case.
> 
> Access for people with disabilities is essential. This does not mean
> that features should be omitted if not all users can fully make use of
> them but rather that alternative/equivalent mechanisms must be
> provided where needed. People with disabilities face some unique
> challenges and barriers (and are only too often systemically
> excluded). To ensure that such exclusion does not occur in HTML 5, it
> does need to contain some features that are *only* of use to people
> with certain disabilities, if functional equivalents can't provided.
> 
> Example: The image in the img element is not perceivable by blind
> users. It has mechanisms for adding text alternatives. No one is
> arguing to make alt text visible by default or add a button for it. A
> text alternative for an image is not rendered with the image. Text
> alternatives are there for people who cannot perceive the image. The
> same principle applies to the summary attribute.
> 
> The reason for retaining @summary as valid and conforming is to ensure
> a group people with disabilities, blind and non-visual users, have a
> table summary mechanism and are not shut out.

Very good points and certainly worth the wider consideration of the group.

Cheers

Josh