- From: Charles McCathieNevile <chaals@opera.com>
- Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:25:02 +0530
- To: "James Graham" <jg307@cam.ac.uk>
- Cc: "HTML WG" <public-html@w3.org>
On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:09:23 +0530, James Graham <jg307@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > Charles McCathieNevile wrote: >> Longdesc is not a perfect solution. But in terms of design it seems a >> lot better thought out than alt - it may be badly used at least as >> often, but were well used it is able to improve more in more cases... > > I'm prepared to bet that, given a choice, the majority of blind users > would take a browser that supported only alt over one that only > supported longdesc. Oh, absolutely. > This seems to be a classic example of "worse is better"; whilst the > design of alt is considerably less powerful than longdesc, that > simplicity has made it easier to get people to understand how to use it > correctly, and to actually deploy it on their sites. Well, alt is also a more important functionality, one that is much less work to get half right. I agree that simplicity of design is helpful. It is also true that alt has suffered from monstrous amounts of misuse and poor use - even from people who are trying hard to get it right - and it is in that sense that I think longdesc was better designed. Of course, that's substantially just opinion... aesthetics of design are only moderately convertible and measurable in any sufficiently broad audience. cheers Chaals -- Charles McCathieNevile Opera Software, Standards Group je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk http://my.opera.com/chaals Try Opera 9.5: http://snapshot.opera.com
Received on Wednesday, 6 February 2008 14:55:21 UTC