Re: CP, ISSUE-30: Link longdesc to role of img [Was: hypothetical question on longdesc]

Quoting Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>:

> In either case, it's no more than an icon representing a label for the
> video. There is no long textual description required - that time is
> better spent skipping the video or watching it.

Silvia,

I am both offended and saddened by your response here. It is NOT just  
an icon, it has the potential to be an extremely rich and detailed  
image (referenced via @poster) that could warrant it's own rich  
textual description. That you could so cavalierly dismiss a need and  
requirement that has come *from blind users* simply serves to  
illustrate the divide between the engineers and the users that  
characterizes so many of the outstanding accessibility issues in HTML5.

At any rate, the need to provide a longer textual description for the  
image referenced by @poster was addressed by Issue 142, rejected due  
to a misreading of the proposal by the Chairs, and is currently lodged  
as a Formal Objection with the Working Group and slated to go to the  
Director unless or until I withdraw it. Meanwhile, more interested in  
successful results than procedural wrangling or arguing with engineers  
who *refuse to listen to the users*, I have begun discussions with the  
ARIA-WG, and am in the process of helping to develop an ARIA attribute  
(in the context of ARIA 1.1) to deliver the functionality to  
non-sighted users that they have both requested and require.   
Continued discussion here on this topic is wasting everyone's time. It  
is my hope that the ARIA 1.1 work will outpace the HTML5 work, and  
that I will be able to withdraw my current Formal Objection.

It saddens me deeply that you don't get it, and that you don't seem to  
want to get it, but I will continue to work for the users, because  
they are the ones who are asking for this functionality. We will need  
to agree to disagree, and hope we can continue to work on other issues  
towards successfully supporting Persons with Disabilities in HTML5.

JF

Received on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 01:32:41 UTC