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Re: HTML Action Item 54 - ...draft text for HTML 5 spec to require producers/authors to include @alt on img elements.

From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 20:49:19 +0000 (UTC)
To: Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
Cc: "public-html@w3.org" <public-html@w3.org>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>, wai-liaison@w3.org
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.62.0805212045130.12907@hixie.dreamhostps.com>

On Wed, 21 May 2008, Steven Faulkner wrote:
>
> [Jon] wrote:
> "Then you're using the same markup for two different semantics:"
> 
> not me jon, as I said, this is what the HTML5 spec says.

Actually the current text distinguishes these three cases:

 * Images that are purely decorative

 * Images that are equivalent to other text that is already in the page, 
   and that merely provides a redundant representation in another medium

 * Images that are critical to the content

If you provide a _label_ or _caption_ for a critical image, that is *not* 
the content that the image conveys. Giving alt="" for a critical image 
that happens to have a caption is *not* the same as the image being 
totally redundant with other text on the page.

I agree with Jon that saying that you should provide alt="" for critical 
images that have captions but are otherwise not described is bad for 
accessibility, and I think proposing that we require that for images that 
are missing alternative text would be doing a disservice for users who 
need alternative text.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Wednesday, 21 May 2008 20:50:09 UTC

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