Re: Response to: ChangeProposals/DeprecateLongdesc

Silvia Pfeiffer writes:
> Note that your proposal strongly supports the move of @longdesc to the
> context menu, which in turn makes the availability of a @longdesc link
> much harder to discover for screen reader users because they have to
> open the context menu to find out, while @aria-describedby will just
> push the description at them. So, if anything, the discoverability
> argument is not going in your favor.
> 

This is not correct. It is expected AT will provide suitable mechanisms
to identify the availability of long desc, as indeed AT is able so to do
today as shown in the TF backed proposal:

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc/Implementation

The actual point of providing longdesc via a mechanism like the context
menu is to allow any user, not just AT users, to access this content.
This was an oft repeated criticism in earlier discussions. While not an
a11y requirement,it's certainly a usage the TF does not oppose. If the
WG wants longdesc to be sharable across all users, more power to the WG,
the TF has never objected to that.

Janina


-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
		sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net

Chair, Open Accessibility	janina@a11y.org	
Linux Foundation		http://a11y.org

Chair, Protocols & Formats
Web Accessibility Initiative	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Received on Tuesday, 23 August 2011 23:00:38 UTC