RE: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update

David Singer wrote:
> 
> The trouble is, longdesc is neither widely supported nor reliable
> today.  If it was, I suspect that we would not be having this
> discussion.
> 

With due respect, that wholly depends on how you measure support and
reliability.

It's true that most major browsers do nothing with @longdesc today, but the
market leading screen reader does, so for those users the support both
exists, and works dependably.

As Geoff Freed also points out, this very technique is being used in a large
number of educational materials today, so increasingly, non-sighted students
can start to expect that longer textual descriptions may very well be
provided to them, (although sadly only if they use specific technology tools
today). From personal experience, most non-sighted students *DO* have JAWs
installed, even if they only use it some of the time.

JF

Received on Monday, 17 September 2012 22:14:06 UTC