Re: Another summary of alt="" issues and why the spec says what it says

Hixie wrote:
>I guess, though I don't really understand what practical benefit there is
>to linking the description to the image using aria-describedby.

Simple really, it would provide an explicit association between the image
and it description, which can be relaible conveyed to an AT user.

See Ya!

On 18/04/2008, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

>
> On Fri, 18 Apr 2008, Jim Jewett wrote:
> >
> > > Wouldn't that require that the image be described somewhere? The whole
> > > point here is that we don't know what the image is.
> >
> > Yes -- but the description, like alt text in practice, need not be
> > perfect.
> >
> > There are plenty of reasons that "good enough" alt text may not be
> > available, but no one has come up with an example where *nothing* was
> > known about the image.  You just posted your four main examples, and
> > there was indeed information.  Not as much as we would like, but quite a
> > bit more than nothing.
> >
> > You then said that information wasn't suitable for alt text, because it
> > should be in a visible element instead -- which it could be, if
> > aria-describedby were used to link the two elements.
>
> I guess, though I don't really understand what practical benefit there is
> to linking the description to the image using aria-describedby.
>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>
>


-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

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Received on Friday, 18 April 2008 06:14:27 UTC