Re: @longdesc scope (was: HTML Media Transcript, Issue-194: Are we done?)

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> Silvia Pfeiffer, Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:39:49 +0200:
>
>> I've tried to argue this line of thought before, too.
>>
>> I've come to the conclusion that a transcript is indeed one type of
>> long description
>
> +1

... but not every long description is a transcript! :-)

>> and likely sufficient as a text replacement for
>> video. However, there are other types of long descriptions that people
>> may also want to publish and the @longdesc (@aria-describedat)
>> attribute is more appropriate for those. I personally don't think
>> those other types of long descriptions are necessary, since if you
>> have a full-text transcript (or better even a collated transcript [1])
>> you get all the information that you need - and summaries are usually
>> published somewhere else on the page, such as in a description
>> section, so @aria-describedby is more appropriate there. But I've come
>> to accept that there may not always be a transcript and such other
>> type of long description may be easier to author and publish then.
>
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/#collated-transcripts
>
> As I just said to Laura,[1] that section of the WCAG 1.0 techniques
> seemingly operates with a 'transcripts from sounds only' concept.
> However, the preceding section about 'Visual information and motion'
> makes it clear that a collated transcript may include transcriptions
> from an auditory description track. It goes on to say that "Auditory
> descriptions are used primarily by people who are blind". However, for
> someone reading a transcript, it usually doesn't matter who it was made
> for, as one does usually not consume the transcript in parallel with
> the running video, but as an independent piece of art.

Sometimes. But sometimes people consume the transcript together with
the video. In particular this is the case for interactive transcripts.
I wouldn't want to limit our use of transcripts to those without video
- often times when you read the transcript, you also like to watch
parts of the video at the same time.

Cheers,
Silvia.

Received on Tuesday, 10 July 2012 17:59:14 UTC