- From: Leif Halvard Silli <lhs@malform.no>
- Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:17:01 +0200
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- CC: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>, Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>
Maciej Stachowiak On 09-08-17 11.05: > > On Aug 17, 2009, at 2:00 AM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote: > >> On 17/08/2009 09:42, Maciej Stachowiak wrote: >>> Would it be appropriate, in light of this, to add a user agent >>> requirement that an img with empty alt should not be mapped to >>> accessibility APIs at all? >> >> Given the variety of authoring practice around "alt", I don't think >> that would be safe. >> >> In situations like: >> >> <a href="#"><img src="delete.png" alt=""></a> >> >> It's useful to AT for the "img" to be exposed and to be able to access >> "src" attributes for the purpose of providing a substitute for proper >> alternative text. > > If that's so, then wouldn't it be better for authors to use alt="" > instead of role="presentation", so that AT can decide whether it needs > to expose the image anyway? In particular, if your example was marked up > like this: > > <a href="#"><img src="delete.png" role="presentation"></a> > > Then isn't it equally necessary and appropriate for AT to expose that > image? > > It seems like, based on this example, images should always be exposed to > accessibility APIs, and AT should make the call on whether it needs to > override the author-provided semantics. You say that we have agreement to add ARIA to HTML 5 ... And yet you argue for keeping it out of HTML 5 as much as possible? Do you simply want to make role="presentation" permitted because you want to be polite? It has been argued that it must not be permitted to use @role in a way that conflicts with semantics of the elements in the host language. Just now Anne suggested to add a <main> element based on two premises: 1) "main" and "content" are much used as class names. 2) "main" is a role in ARIA. So, by introducing <main> we possibly build a bridge to authors and to ARIA. (Though sometimes it is probably easier to use role="main".) Now, it could be argued - perhaps - that the ARIA construct <element role="presentation">, when it comes to images, has an equivalent in HTML, namely <img alt="">. If that is how you view it, then would it not be better to completely disallow role="presentation" on IMG? I would further expect that you would say that an <object> element which has no fallback content, should be considered as having role="presentation". -- leif halvard silli
Received on Monday, 17 August 2009 21:17:46 UTC