Re: Need differentiator between "no alt text provided" and "no alt text necessary"

On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, James Craig wrote:
> > >
> > > 1. Presentational image (no alternative text necessary)
> > > 2. Meaningful image (no alternative text provided)
> > > 3. Meaningful image (alternative text provided)
> 
> The reason there needs to be a differentiator is because each host 
> language (in this case, HTML 5) needs a way to determine when an image 
> should use the "presentation" role and when it should use the default 
> "img" role so the user agent can convey the role to an assistive 
> technology API. An author or an authoring tool may have that 
> information, but there is currently no way to convey it in the language.

There is already a differentiator. Assuming a conforming document, number 
1 above will have alt="" (empty), number 2 will have no alt attribute at 
all, and number 3 will have alt="something".

HTH,
-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 2 February 2009 23:06:56 UTC