Re: conflation of issues or convergence of interests?

At 17:30 +1000 UTC, on 2007-07-28, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

> Jason White wrote:

[.... define relationship between equivalents]

>> It would allow testing tools to check that there is an alternative
>>associated
>> with the video. This is important for the purpose of verifying conformance
>>to
>> site-wide or organizational policies, WCAG specifications, etc.
>
> There is no requirement for all accessibility features to be testable
> using automated accessibility testing.

Indeed not all aspects of "accessibility" can be tested programatically. Such
a tool can note that a form control lacks a label; that for some element only
a foreground and no background colour is defined; that a table has no
summary. It cannot tell whether a label has been applied in a useful manner
or whether an @alt value is an actual equivalent (but it could note that @alt
and the image's caption are equal).

So yes, there are obvious limitations. But isn't that all the more reason to
ensure that at least those aspects that could be checked programmatically,
can?

> [...] Accessibility
> features should be evaluated according to how well they benefit users,
> not how easily a tool can test for it.

Yes and no :) For those aspects that can be checked programatically, that
fact can help authors and thus in turn benefits users.

[...]

> BTW, there was a suggestion for <a rel="longdesc"> a while ago, which,
> when used within <figure> and <legend>, is a possible solution.

IIRC that was about <a rel=longdesc><img></a>. Some major cons are [1]
maintenance (ensuring that the resource @longdesc points to remains available
and up to date) and [2] <a rel=longdesc><img></a> means the image cannot link
elsewhere. So it would be incompatible with current practices (like having a
thumbnail link to a high res version.)


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Saturday, 28 July 2007 20:50:02 UTC