Re: HTML-A11Y Task Force Recommendation: ISSUE-31 Missing Alt

Hi Jonas,

> Would you mind if I make some edits?

That would be great. I need all of the help I can get :-) But it would
be best to try to come to agreement on any substantive changes first.

> For example I disagree with "The
> title attribute is not an acceptable text alternative as it's content
> is not displayed to the user unless they can use a mouse and
> beforehand know the content is there". There is nothing in any
> specification that requires that so it seems like an inaccurate
> statement. I'd prefer to say that for simplicity and consistency in
> messaging it is better to always require alt, even when there is a
> title.

Yes, I see your point. The new "guidance for conformance checkers"
language makes that section moot. I agree slicing the title section
would simplify things. I removed both the title section and the email
sections for simplicity sake. They are both  listed in the impact
section and Issue 80 specifically covers title anyway.

> I'm also not sure I with the new definition of the <img> element. It
> seems useful for the semantic meaning of <img> to always be an image,
> even when fallback is rendered. For example even a blind user that
> uses fallback might want to request a list of images from his AT tool.
> Under the new definition that would be semantically incorrect. Also,
> even text can be a visual representation, for example in a UA with
> images disabled.

We may need to think about that a bit more. The key point  is that alt
is not fallback. Alt is equal to src.

But maybe we can simplify choices, if people can agree to mandatory
alt with no exclusions, maybe the definition could be pulled from this
change proposal into its own change proposal. And we can work on it
there.

Can anyone not live with mandatory alt and no exclusions?:

We would be replace the current guidance for conformance checkers text:
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/ImgElement20100504#Replace_the_Current_Guidance_for_Conformance_Checkers_Text:

With suggested guidance for conformance checkers text:
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/ImgElement20100504#With_Suggested_Guidance_for_Conformance_Checkers_Text:

Thoughts?

Best Regards,
Laura
-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Tuesday, 4 May 2010 18:21:12 UTC