Re: LONGDESC: some current problems and a proposed solution added to the wiki

Peter Krantz wrote:
> <picture src="ukflag.gif">
>   <p>The UK flag consists of yada yada.... and:</p>
>   <ul>
>      <li>hackety hack</li>
>   </ul>
> </picture>
> 
> If I want to display the fallback content and the picture at the same
> time, how should that be rendered in UAs? Or do I have to repeat the
> fallback content elsewhere in the page?

Your desire to make it available to everyone, illustrates the fact that 
that example content *is not* alternative content for the image.  It is 
additional information about the image.  I know it's based on the UK 
flag longdesc example that was provided earlier, but that was a poor 
example because in the context that the flag was used, describing it's 
history and other additional information was completely out of context.

Depending on the context in which the flag was used and its purpose, a 
good long description would describe its colours and the way in which 
the crosses are overlayed.  That would be suitable for an article about 
the flag itself, but would be completely inappropriate in a case where 
the flag was just used as an icon to represent the region or language.

For an article about the flag itself, this would be appropriate:

<figure>
   <img src="flag" alt="" longdesc="flag-longdesc">
   <legend>The UK Flag</legend>
</figure>

For a page that uses it as an icon for the user to select their region, 
this would be:

<p>Select your region:
    <a href="/uk/><img src="flag" alt="UK" title="UK"></a>
    ...

While exactly the same image may be appropriate for both cases, it's 
context determines what would be suitable for alt, longdesc and title.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

Received on Sunday, 1 July 2007 02:57:45 UTC