Re: Request to Reconsider Alt Guidance Location

Hi ben,

> which drops all normative requirements for HTML5
>conforming documents around the @alt attribute

If this is your impression then the CP needs to be clarified. The
machine checkable normative conformance requirements are not being
removed from HTML5. The non machine checkable author conformance
requirements for alt are.
i.e. requirements around the presence/absence of the alt stay.
requirements about what is an appropriate text alternative in a given
content move.

regards
stevef


On 24 February 2012 07:46, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
<bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 4:17 AM, Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net> wrote:
>>> Janina, it might be helpful to clarify how the HTML 5 Techniques for
>>> WCAG 2.0 Task Force [1] is or is not involved in all of this.
>>>
>> It's a joint PF and WCAG TF charged with creating and documenting
>> techniques for HTML 5 that lead to WCAG conformance. In publishing
>> these, following review, they update WCAG 2 by design. In this way, as
>> the CP says, WCAG 2 is a "living specification."
>
> I can't follow this.
>
> WHATWG HTML5 is a "Living Standard" in the sense that it's a moving
> target for conformance.
>
> W3C HTML5 provides a snapshot target for conformance.
>
> WCAG 2 the Recommendation provides a snapshot target for conformance.
> It has not been updated since December 2008.
>
> WCAG 2 Understanding and Techniques are quite different types of
> document. Neither the facts that they are just Notes not
> Recommendations and frequently updated does not mean they cannot be
> specifications with conformance requirements. But in fact these
> documents declare that they are purely informative:
>
>    http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/#status
>
>    http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-TECHS/#status
>
> The CP says new WCAG normative requirements will be produced by
> updating these documents. Is the plan to change the status of these
> documents so that they provide normative requirements for a Living
> Standard WCAG as well as informative guidance for WCAG 2, or what?
>
> If you're just documenting techniques that might lead to WCAG
> conformance in the style of the existing techniques document, then you
> are not producing normative requirements.
>
> More generally, it seems hard to reconcile a11y task force support for
> this radical CP, which drops all normative requirements for HTML5
> conforming documents around the @alt attribute, with earlier arguments
> for details like requiring the @alt attribute on <img> elements and
> not giving documents an @alt exemption based on meta generator.
> Previously, many TF members have been adamant that it was crucial for
> the W3C HTML5 validator to push @alt requirements.
>
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis



-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG

www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com |
www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives -
dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/
Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html

Received on Friday, 24 February 2012 08:21:08 UTC