Re: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update

On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Laura Carlson
<laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Geoff,
>
> I will be leaving the HTMLWG and accessibility task force shortly as
> Judy sent me the link to the form. But before I go I wanted to add to
> you're statement:
>
>> Publishers in America have used it extensively in the past and are continuing to use it today as it's the best *available* method to deliver long descriptions to students that need them.
>
> longdesc improves accessibility in practice:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2012Sep/att-0025/comments-mt.html#practice
>
> Notably the two sister sites Statistics Canada and Statistique Canada
> began consistently using longdesc in "The Daily" publication. "The
> Daily" produces statistics on a business-day basis that help Canadians
> better understand their country, its population, resources, economy,
> society and culture. Please refer to Statistics Canada and Statistique
> Canada for detailed evidence.
> http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld.html#statcan
> http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld.html#statcanf
>
> longdesc is experiencing increased usage in the wild
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2012Sep/att-0025/comments-mt.html#increasedusage


This is very good data and a great list of sites that support longdesc
for their accessibility needs. I have always admired your excellently
prepared data and the excellent work you've done for the TF, so I am
really sad to see you go.

Interestingly, you data actually confirms the message that I just sent
on another thread [1] about moving to @aria-describedat. I would think
that all of these institutions that are supportive of accessibility
and are using @longdesc in the correct way for this purpose would
accept moving to use @aria-describedat if we encouraged them to do so.
In this way, the vast pollution of @longdesc values that we see in the
wild would be replaced by only clean and accurate use of
@aria-describedat . It would make it easier for tools to identify
sites that have appropriate and usable long text alternatives, since
you can just search for @aria-describedat and know you will get good
results, rather than searching for @longdesc and having to wade
through vast numbers of misuses.

Thanks again.

Regards,
Silvia.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2012Sep/0447.html

Received on Sunday, 23 September 2012 00:42:44 UTC