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

Hello, all,

Marco: CSS background images that convey information fail SC 1.1.1 
according to Failure F3, so I would not consider a technique that allows 
(or even promotes) another failure.

Regards,
Ramón.

Marco wrote:

> One problem I see here is the fact that we are no longer dealing with 
> sole images provided by the img tag alone. Another now common source of 
> missing alternative text for images is when context, or even 
> interactable controls, are provided via CSS background images. In HTML, 
> these are merely referenced by a CSS class name or similar, and are not 
> on image tags, but on something as simple as a span or even b or i. Yes, 
> I have seen all of these in the wild.
> 
> Those images need alternative text to be accessible, too, but there is 
> no alt attribute for these. The only way to make these accessible is via 
> aria-label or aria-labelledby.
> 
> So while it is correct that the proper way for an image tag to provide 
> alt text is via the alt attribute, for other images this technique does 
> not apply, and needs aria-label or aria-labelledby. And while I, in 
> principle, agree with Steve and others that alt should be paramount, I 
> also see the fact that we have to teach two different techniques to web 
> developers for things that are not so dissimilar in principle.
> 
> I am torn, and I haven't made a final decision yet whether the 
> requirement should be loosened. The part of me saying "use native over 
> ARIA wherever possible" says "yes", the part that teaches accessibility 
> to web developers almost on a daily basis says "loosen it so they can 
> have a common technique and not remember two different things for 
> similar concepts".

Received on Monday, 25 November 2013 19:23:07 UTC