- From: Robert Burns <rob@robburns.com>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 03:06:41 -0500
- To: Patrick Garies <pgaries@fastmail.us>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
Hi Patrick, On Jul 15, 2007, at 2:37 AM, Patrick Garies wrote: > Robert Burns wrote: >> It might be helpful if you too could provide some examples of what >> you're saying. For example, in Jon's Fluffy picture example, how >> would you populate the @alt attribute? I understand one needs >> context to be able to do this, but feel free to take liberties, >> make assumptions and fill in the gaps and then craft an example. >> It would just be helpful to see how one might attach proper @alt >> and @longdesc to an simple example like this. > > Context: document about Fluffy > Code: <img alt="Fluffy likes playing with balls of yarn." > src="cat.png"> > Code: <img alt="My cat Fluffy likes playing with balls of yarn." > src="cat.png"> > Code: <img alt="I let my cat, Fluffy, played with a ball of yarn > when we were at my friend’s house a year ago. He seemed to enjoy > it." src="cat.png"> > Code: <img alt="I own a cat named Fluffy. He likes playing with > balls of yarn." src="cat.png"> Thanks, those are fine examples. However, I was interested in Jon's example as a starting point:. In particular this <img> alongside the paragraph. I'd also like to hear what Sander thinks since, I sense he may have his own opinions on this too. Jon's example. > <img src=cat.jpg alt="A photo of my cat, Fluffy, playing with a > ball of yarn"> > <p>A photo of my cat, Fluffy, playing with a ball of yarn</p> To take out one of your examples: > Code: <img alt="?" src="cat.png"> > Code <p>I let my cat, Fluffy, played with a ball of yarn when we > were at my friend’s house a year ago. He seemed to enjoy it.</p> My contention (and this was a point I think Jon was making too), is that when a textual equivalent describing the image is already in the surrounding prose, it shouldn't be repeated for the @alt attribute. My proposal was something shorter that let's the user know what meaning the image conveys in a way that matches it with the prose available to all users. I suppose an alternative could be: > Code: <img alt="Fluffy with the ball of yarn" > longdesc='#fluffyplays' src="cat.png"> > Code <p id='fluffyplays' >I let my cat, Fluffy, played with a ball > of yarn when we were at my friend’s house a year ago. He seemed to > enjoy it.</p> An even richer alternative could be: > Code: <img onclick='toggleLongDesc()' alt="Fluffy with the ball of > yarn" longdesc='#fluffyplays' src="cat.png"> > Code <p>I let my cat, Fluffy, played with a ball of yarn when we > were at my friend’s house a year ago. He seemed to enjoy it.</p> > Code <p style='visibility: hidden;' id='fluffyplays' >Fluffy is a > tiny tabby cat with a partial mane that makes her look like a > little lion. She's fallen over with the ball on her belly and she's > staring right into the camera with the most beautiful eyes.</p> I think this example above is interesting because it has @lat, it has textual description for consumption by all users and it has equivalent/alternate/fallback description that may only be important for those with a visual impairment or who are using a text-only UA. A similar arrangement might make use of the figure and legend elements like: > Code <figure> > Code: <legend>I let my cat, Fluffy, played with a ball of yarn when > we were at my friend’s house a year ago. He seemed to enjoy it.</ > legend> > Code <img onclick='toggleLongDesc()' alt="Fluffy with the ball of > yarn" longdesc='#fluffyplays' Code <p style='visibility: hidden;' > id='fluffyplays' >Fluffy is a tiny tabby cat with a partial mane > that makes her look like a little lion. She's fallen over with the > ball on her belly and she's staring right into the camera with the > most beautiful eyes.</p> > src="cat.png"> > Code </figure> The important thing I think is to not put these alternatives on too high of a pedestal, so that nothing is adequate. Sander, seemed to suggest it would be better to leave alternatives off than to add something you think might be wrong. Perhaps I just don't understand what is needed to fulfill the @alt requirement, but it seems like we'd be better off encouraging some text alternative than nothing at all. For example, in this last case below, I think I would rather have the bad example, than nothing at all. At least I can read that an decipher that, though this is not a very good accessibility author, I can figure out that the house icon might mean "home icon" which they must have meant "go to the home page". Especially if I noticed that @alt repeated on page after page. Without it, I might be frustrated with every visit to this site thinking: "I wish they would just add a home button to their various web pages". > Image: icon depicting a house > Bad Example: <a href="/"><img alt="House Icon" src="home.png"></a> > Good Example: <a href="/"><img alt="Go to the Home Page" > src="home.png"></a> Take care, Rob
Received on Sunday, 15 July 2007 08:07:08 UTC