[Bug 10642] No alternative text description for video key frame (poster)

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10642

--- Comment #25 from John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu> 2010-09-30 20:41:32 UTC ---
> Regarding comment 9, why would a user with a visual
> impairment not want to know: well, why would they? 
> Heck, why would a user with 20/20 vision want to
> know what the poster frame is? 

Following this reasoning, why do you allow authors to specify a poster frame in
the first place? There is/was clearly a reason to allow authors to provide a
poster frame other than the first frame of a video, so for all of the reasons
why you allow authors the ability to add a poster frame, there is likely a user
who will respond to that reason. By allowing for a specified poster frame, you
have provided the author with a tool.

This is not about whether you agree or disagree with an author's choice, it is
about ensuring that when an author makes an available authoring choice using
tools we provide that there is an accessible means of ensuring that they can be
inclusive (which *is* a human rights issue). Nobody needs to 'justify' these
author choices, we simply need to ensure they can be done with accessibility in
mind - that the mechanism exists to do so.


> The poster frame's only job is to look pretty
> and manipulate the user into starting the video, 

So by your own admission then, that graphical image has a purpose - it is, in
your own words, to "manipulate the user into starting the video". Not to allow
the user to start the video (that's what the start control does), but to invoke
an emotional response so that they are actually "manipulated" into starting the
video. Do you believe then that non-sighted users cannot also be "manipulated"
to perform an action?


> what it shows is of minimal
> importance to the user. 

If this were true, then why does the author have the ability to specify an
image other than the first frame of a video as the "poster frame"? 


> Note that posters (as per comment 10) are a whole different issue. We're
> talking specifically about the frame of video that is shown before the video
> has loaded. I don't understand why it would be any more special than any of the
> other frames of the video, as far as getting alternative text is concerned.


Once a video is started, non-sighted users will rely on descriptive audio
(http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/wiki/index.php?title=Media_Accessibility_Checklist#dv)
or descriptive text
(http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/wiki/index.php?title=Media_Accessibility_Checklist#tvd)
to further understand the 'imagery' as it changes.

What is unclear to me is why the Editor continues to argue with blind users who
are telling him what they need and want. He can apply all the logic he can
dream up to justify not supporting this request, but it does not give him the
perspective of a blind user.

This is an engineering problem, give us an engineering solution; don't block
this because you cannot imagine what it is like to be a blind user, or lack the
imagination to understand why this is important.

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Received on Thursday, 30 September 2010 20:41:35 UTC