Re: User Testing footage of header/id combinations, @summary and @longdesc for HTML5 WG

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:30:30 +0200, ryan <ryan@theryanking.com> wrote:

> On Sep 14, 2007, at 6:23 AM, Robert Burns wrote:
>> Hi Eric,
>>
...
>> I don't really understand how anyone can go from Thomas's few  
>> interesting anecdotes to that conclusion. ...
>
> I apologize if I've missed a vital part of the conversation (and I'm  
> certainly no expert on accessibility technologies), but it seems to me  
> that Tomas is saying that there are no "users who make use of the  
> [longdesc] attribute".

Well, that is his implied conclusion. But his evidence is based on logs  
 from one site, where there is (I contend) virtually no graphics, certainly  
no very interesting graphics, and not much motivation for users to care  
what they look like anyway.

> Sure, its anecdotal evidence, but if its true, we're talking about  
> thousands of sites being formally evaluated for their accessibility and  
> none of the evaluations involves a longdesc.

No, we are talking about one site where longdesc was never used, and if I  
understand correctly *one* blind user looking at a hundred sites who  
didn't bother to look at the longdescs available.

> Tomas ancedotes are relevant to this WG, because it's evidence  
> supporting the assertion that longdesc is rarely used

Indeed, but not terribly strong evidence unfortunately.

> and when it is, its rarely used usefully.

No. This is a valid conclusion from Hixie's mostly unpublished (and for  
the rest of us unrepeateable) research, but not at all valid from Tom's.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
   Charles McCathieNevile, Opera Software: Standards Group
   hablo español  -  je parle français  -  jeg lærer norsk
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Received on Saturday, 15 September 2007 10:09:03 UTC