Re: Longdesc change proposal update

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 5:57 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> John Foliot, Sun, 8 May 2011 08:51:58 -0700 (PDT):
>> Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
>
> First to Silvia:
>>>> Btw, I have suggested (spec text which says) that when a longdesc
>>>> points to another page, then it should point to the exact fragment
>>>> where the description begins ... And that there should also be an
>>>> onvous end of the description. I still think that is a good idea May
>>>> be, Silvia, if you try to add spec text, should should try to keep
>>>> that perspective?
>>>
>>> I was indeed wondering about that. If longdesc should only be used for
>>> a11y purposes, then indeed it should point to the fragment offset of
>>> the long description on the longdesc page.
>
> +1
>
>>> However, I wonder if it is
>>> sufficient to provide people the opportunity to read that information
>>> on a separate page that contains other interesting information, too.
>
> What does it meant to "provide"? If it is kept outside the #fragment
> that contains the description, then it should be OK - the user can
> decide to read it if (s)he will.
>
>>> They are already prepared to spend more time on reading about the
>>> image, so they will probably find the paragraph(s) that provide the
>>> long description quickly. That would allow the longdesc link to be
>>> both useful to blind and sighted users.
>
> -1  I don't support this. However, the page where the description is
> located could perhaps be a page with extra info, where only a
> particular #fragment provided info about the the image. Thus one could
> link to the entire page as "extra info", whereas the @longdesc of the
> IMG could link to the specific section with a long description of the
> image.

Yes, fair enough.

I'm also noticing that many of the examples that Laura points to have
other content on the @longdesc page, namely banners, navigation etc.
There, a fragment would be required, too.

[..]

>> As well, looking at plugin solutions such as the WordPress longdesc
>> module, the author is prompted to provide both an alternative text, as
>> well as a "description" at image insertion time, and upon submit the
>> module stores that descriptions as a unique db entry and dynamic url:

.. or as part of that extra page that most web content management
systems provide for uploaded images. It could simple be an additional
field that people can fill in extra descriptive text and with a clear
target on blind people.

I am repeating the vision-impaired focus here again for a specific
purpose: while the @longdesc text is likely also useful to other users
- users with learning disabilities etc - I think that use actually
falls out as a side effect. We need to focus the user on a single
purpose when entering the text and not confuse them with multiple use
cases. If I have to author a long description with a blind user in
mind, I will likely create a better description than when I have to
think about a blind user, a user with learning disabilities, a user
with cognitive disabilities, and other people that will likely find
that text useful. So, IMHO a focus on vision-impaired is likely to
lead to better text for everyone than if we try to make it too broad.

Cheers,
Silvia.

Received on Sunday, 8 May 2011 22:34:06 UTC