Re: Investigating the proposed alt attribute recommendations in HTML 5

On 2007-09-01 17:34:18 +0200 Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl> wrote:
> At 20:29 +0200 UTC, on 2007-08-31, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> On 2007-08-31 17:06:51 +0200 Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl>:
>>> At 13:39 +0200 UTC, on 2007-08-31, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>>>>>> On 2007-08-30 18:06:26 +0200 Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl> wrote:
>>>>>>> At 05:43 +0200 UTC, on 2007-08-30, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> 
> [... about the draft's "User agents must not present the contents of the alt
> attribute in the same way as content of the title attribute."]
> 
>> it isn't told straight out that both TITLE and ALT must be available to the
>> users.
>> 
>> In fact, there is no place that outlines the relationship between TITLE and
>> ALT, that I can see - except for this little snippet.
> 
> What relationship should be outlined then? I don't see any relationship […]

> (If anything, the spec may need to say "There is no relation between @title
> and @alt", if we think that too many authors think there is.)

Right, there is no more relationship between ALT and TITLE than there is a relationship betweeen the image/graphic and TITLE … Except that both TITLE and ALT are human readable text …

What I meant is that the relationship - or lack there of - between ALT and TITLE should be discussed in the spec. What goes into ALT and what goes into TITLE is a real issue for many - just as it has been said in our debate.

We might say that the reason for this trouble is that some UAs show ALT as if it were TITLE, when TITLE is lacking. But _that_ is just an extra obstacle. (As is it bothersome that we cannot see the ALT text - that leads to people putting what they want to see into TITLE, I think.) Even without that particular confusion, there seems to be trouble.

I think that just as the draft has examples of how to use or not use ALT, the draft should also show samples of how to use and how to not use TITLE versus ALT. For example, one could show the FLAG example, <img alt="vietnamese" title="language" src="VietnameseFlag.gif"> etc.

>>     [...]
>> 	(And in turn, I wouldn't be opposed to requiring @title when @alt is
>> 	omitted)
> 
> Yeah, I disagree with that. @title has nothing to do with equivalents.
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Joshue have been performing user tests. When we got the results, some were
>> reacting by saying that Jaws should change its behaviour.
> 
> Did we get Joshue's test results already? I missed that :( Where can they be
> found?

Probably we task past each others, but here it is: <http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/articles/altinhtml5.html>
 
> [...]
> 
>>> Well actually I *do* think that UAs should make it possible for users to
>>> consume multiple equivalents simultaneously.
>> 
>> OK - then we are in agreement, I think. Except I would not say that it
>> matters _that_ much whether it happens simultaneously or consecutively.
> 
> It depends on the situation. The option to listen to an audio file while
> reading its transcript seems particularly useful to me.

Of course. (Btw, outside this forum some of us discussed if and audiofile could be the alternative content of the IMG file - perhaps through content negotiaion.)
 
>> What matter is that the user can load the document, and opt to see the alt
>> text for a certain image - either simultaneously or consecutively, without
>> having to do extraordinary stuff - like turning off _all_ images, reloading
>> the document etcetera etcetera.
> 
> Agreed 100%.
> 
> [...]
> 
>>> @title is for advisory information.
>> 
>> For myself, 'context' helped me understand better. Title can tell about the
>> authors intent. A good TITLE therefore, can help make the ALT text shorter.
> 
> Well, yes, but the same applies to all other content that relates to a
> non-text object. There is nothing special about @title where equivalents are
> concerned.

I do not understand you quite here.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 3 September 2007 00:06:41 UTC