Re: One more thought about requiring the alt to add to the pile

hi david,
>I have not seen jaws ignoring alt="" in fact, it reports some blather as
>though there was no alt.

can you supply some examples of where this occurs and also what
version of JAWS you are using.

regards
stevef



On 20/04/2008, David Poehlman <david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com> wrote:
> I have not seen jaws ignoring alt="" in fact, it reports some blather as
> though there was no alt.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steven Faulkner" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
> To: "Henri Sivonen" <hsivonen@iki.fi>
> Cc: <public-html@w3.org>; "W3C WAI-XTECH" <wai-xtech@w3.org>;
> <wai-liaison@w3.org>
> Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 5:25 AM
> Subject: Re: One more thought about requiring the alt to add to the pile
>
>
>
> hi henri,
>
> >  There has now been a decade-long experiment with making alt a syntax
> > requirement. I think this experiment shows that doing so has the downside
> > of
> > inducing bogus alt. When validation has downsides, as a validator
> > developer,
> > I want to work to remove the downsides.
>
> Where is the empirical data to support your assumptions? All we
> currently have on both sides is anecdote and conviction.
>
> >  A modal non-visual UI may be easier to invent, but in a non-visual UI it
> > is
> > also harder to tell what mode you are trapped in, so I don't think it is
> > necessarily OK to introduce more modality even if there already is some.
> > It
> > appears that VoiceOver tries to avoid modality (apart from the VO key
> > lock)
> > just like visual Apple user interfaces.
>
> As far as AT is concerned we are not comparing like with like.
> the windows and mac OS systems present different challenges for AT to
> overcome.
> I do  not understand the reason for presence of modal UIs in windows
> AT, but not in voiceover.
>
> my suggestion was not to add another mode as both window eys and jaws
> (for example) have the option available already to announce all
> graphics, but currently this setting still ignores <img alt="">,
> so what I am suggesting is that the vendors merely change the
> functionality for this option so that alt="" is reported.
>
> regards
> stevef
> On 20/04/2008, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:
> > On Apr 18, 2008, at 11:07, Steven Faulkner wrote:
> >
> >
> > >
> > > > No. Now you are being so dogmatic about the alt attribute being there
> > > > that you are willing to suggest modal UI to work around it. That's
> > > > bad.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > There is dogma on both sides of the debate, you  appear more dogmatic
> > > about the idea of alt as optional, than I am to it being required, I
> > > have publically stated that I am as yet unconvinced of the
> > > desirability of a required alt. There is obviuosly no doubt in your
> > > mind.
> > >
> >
> >  I can be persuaded with empirical data.
> >
> >  There has now been a decade-long experiment with making alt a syntax
> > requirement. I think this experiment shows that doing so has the downside
> > of
> > inducing bogus alt. When validation has downsides, as a validator
> > developer,
> > I want to work to remove the downsides.
> >
> >  It may be that there's a greater upside and that a situation that
> > polarizes
> > results but has a greater upside is better even if it also moves the
> > downside further from neutrality. However, absent data about this, I think
> > it is reasonable to default to removing the downside.
> >
> >  Also, I think the Image Review feature I have implemented in Validator.nu
> > works better than merely flagging missing alt as a validation error would
> > for validator users who want to maximize an accessibility measure. It
> > remains to be seen how it affects validator users who don't care about an
> > accessibility measure and are seeking to maximize a syntactic correctness
> > measure.
> >
> >  In general, if you want people to maximize function f(), it is safer to
> > tell them to do so than to tell them to maximize a more appealing function
> > g() and then try to build an artificial correlation between the two.
> > Because
> > then people are really maximizing g() and if your artificial correlation
> > setup isn't working, well, oops. So if your agenda is accessibility, the
> > advocacy should be "accessibility, accessibility"--not "validity,
> > validity"
> > with an added attempt to tie them together.
> >
> >
> > > There already are  "modal UI's" for most aspects of screen readers
> > > content presentation, i think it is the nature of  presenting visual
> > > UI's non visually or non linear content linearly.
> > >
> >
> >  A modal non-visual UI may be easier to invent, but in a non-visual UI it
> > is
> > also harder to tell what mode you are trapped in, so I don't think it is
> > necessarily OK to introduce more modality even if there already is some.
> > It
> > appears that VoiceOver tries to avoid modality (apart from the VO key
> > lock)
> > just like visual Apple user interfaces.
> >
> >  --
> >  Henri Sivonen
> >  hsivonen@iki.fi
> >  http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> with regards
>
> Steve Faulkner
> Technical Director - TPG Europe
> Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium
>
> www.paciellogroup.com | www.wat-c.org
> Web Accessibility Toolbar -
> http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
>
>
>
>


-- 
with regards

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

www.paciellogroup.com | www.wat-c.org
Web Accessibility Toolbar -
http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html

Received on Sunday, 20 April 2008 13:41:53 UTC