[Bug 20117] Discoverability should mean "for all users"

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20117

Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com

--- Comment #1 from Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com> ---
Hi Chaals,

(In reply to comment #0)
> The discoverability requirement needs to clarify that all users should be
> able to discover the longdesc, as per the implementation requirement
> 
> "User agents should allow users to discover when images in a page contain a
> long description." 
> 
> which is separated from the requirement to expose the feature to assistive
> technology. Again, perhaps it would be clearer to explicitly say "all users"
> in that requirement.

Saying "all users" would be good. As you well know discoverability tools exist
for longdesc. 
http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld-ua.html

These tools are used by sighted authors and others. On March 11, 2011,
professional content producers at the Digital Image and Graphic Resources for
Accessible Materials Center (DIAGRAM) addressed longdesc support for other
users:

"features developed to help people with specific disabilities also assist other
users, and this is true for long image descriptions. Today, for example,
Firefox and Opera allow the user to open a context menu over an image and
choose to see the long description on the screen, if @longdesc is included with
the image. This is an excellent tool for assisting sighted students with
learning disabilities who need textual reinforcement when deciphering the
contents of a complicated image." [1]

The claim [2] that longdesc isn't exposed to some users is outweighed by the
concrete examples of it being exposed in accessible ways and is as ludicrous as
suggesting that the <img> element should be removed from HTML5 because its
graphic contents cannot be disclosed to users who elect to use Lynx or similar.

The Include longdesc in HTML5 change proposal [3] had specified discoverability
text for the rendering section to provide functionality for all who wanted
access to the description. 
http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld-rendering2.html
Chaals, something like this in the new spec regarding rendering may help.

On May 5, 2012, HTML Co-Chair, Maciej Stachowiak stated, "if a UA can give a
better experience i think they should be encouraged to try". [4] As Anne van
Kesteren has said, examples in the specification serve as an incentive to
vendors: "It's an incentive to get the software fixed." [5]
--

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Mar/0270.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2012Nov/0152.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc
[4] http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/html-wg/20120504#l-2920
[5] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13531#c6

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the QA Contact for the bug.

Received on Thursday, 29 November 2012 18:56:46 UTC