Re: UNS: WCAG considering amending F65 to NOT fail missing ALT text if title or aria-label is present

Hi Janina,
Over time and due to experience and understanding, consensus positions
change. This document is a useful historical reference, but does not
represent the current (lack of) consensus position on the issue.

--

Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>


On 22 November 2013 23:54, Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net> wrote:

> David:
>
> As a point of information, the wider WAI community has already expressed
> a view on this. We did so back in 2009, after almost a year of
> teleconferences nd
> email discussions by way of presenting a coherent approach to the
> HTML-WG.
>
> The document we produced is entitled, "WAI CG Consensus Resolutions on
> Text alternatives in HTML 5," and is available at:
>
> http://www.w3.org/2009/06/Text-Alternatives-in-HTML5.html
>
> So, while it's always good to revisit old thinking, it should not be
> forgotten that we've already covered this ground, and that we covered it
> quite extensively.
>
> Janina
>
>
> David MacDonald writes:
> > On behalf of the WCAG working group, I have an action item to solicit
> > responses from the wider community regarding a proposed amendment to WCAG
> > failure technique F65 regarding missing ALT. Currently; if an <img>
> element
> > is missing from an ALT attribute the page fails WCAG SC 1.1.1 Level A.
> Some
> > are proposing that we allow authors to use the aria-label,
> aria-labelledby,
> > and title attributes INSTEAD of ALT.
> >
> > So under the amended failure technique NONE of the following would fail
> > WCAG:
> >
> > <img src="../images/giraffe.jpg" title="Giraffe grazing on tree
> branches"/>
> >
> > <img src="../images/giraffe.jpg" aria-label="Giraffe grazing on tree
> > branches"/>
> >
> > <img src="../images/giraffe.jpg" aria-labelledby="123"/>
> > <p id="123"> Giraffe grazing on tree branches</p>
> >
> > As you can imagine there are strong opinions all around on this so I
> > suggested we get a sense of what other groups such as the HTML5 A11y TF
> and
> > PF think.
> >
> > Those in favour of the change provide the following rational:
> >
> > --These alternatives on the img element work in assistive technology
> > --The aria spec says these attributes should get an accessible NAME in
> the
> > API
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#textalternativecomputation
> > --They say it's easy to teach beginner programmers to just always use an
> > aria label on everything, rather than requiring a label on form fields
> and
> > alt on images
> > --They feel as a failure F65 is very strong if fails a page for missing
> ALT,
> > especially if other things work, and they would like to soften it to
> allow
> > other things that work.
> > --html 5 allows a <figure><legend> combination instead of alt, so they
> feel
> > WCAG will have to change F65 anyway to allow a figure with a legend, and
> > that helps open the door to this discussion
> >
> > Those in favour of the status quo (which fails missing alt text) provide
> the
> > following rational:
> >
> > --aria-label, labelledby and title, are not really suitable attributes
> for
> > img alternative text because they implies a label or title, rather than
> an
> > alternate text, so it is not a semantic equivalent
> > --title is not well supported
> > --some feel that the aria spec is not in any way suggesting these as
> > replacements to ALT.
> > --aria instructs authors to use native html where possible, and they
> could
> > not come up with viable use cases of omitting alt text
> > --there are hundreds of millions of dollars invested in current
> evaluation
> > tools, and methodologies, and this would represent a major departure from
> > one of the most basic accessibility convention, that is almost as old as
> the
> > web and is the "rock star" of accessibility
> > --it could cost a lot of money to change guidance to developers etc...,
> and
> > muddy the waters on a very efficient current evaluation mechanism
> > --when the figure/legend is supported by AT we can amend F65 but that is
> a
> > different issue and the semantics of this construct are OK for text
> > alternatives, rather than the label/labelledby/title options
> > --it may cause some confidence problems to WCAG legislation, because it
> > represents a strong loosening to a fundamental Success Criteria, an
> > unnecessary change that doesn't help the cause of accessibility, but just
> > complicates things
> > --ALT is better supported and the text appears when images are turned
> off.
> > --initial twitter feedback from the community is strongly against
> changing
> > this failure
> >
> >
> > There are probably other reasons on both sides which we hope to hear ...
> but
> > these should start it off. Please give your opinions and reasons.
> >
> > Current technique here:
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-TECHS/F65.html
> > Proposed failure here (see test procedure)
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > David MacDonald
> >
> > CanAdapt Solutions Inc.
> > Tel:  613.235.4902
> > http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100
> > www.Can-Adapt.com
> >
> >   Adapting the web to all users
> >             Including those with disabilities
> >
> >
>
> --
>
> Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.443.300.2200
>                         sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
>                 Email:  janina@rednote.net
>
> Linux Foundation Fellow
> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:       http://a11y.org
>
> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> Chair,  Protocols & Formats     http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
>         Indie UI                        http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
>
>
>