Re: ISSUE 30 @longdesc use cases

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 5:00 PM, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu> wrote:
> Jonas Sicking wrote:
>>
>> Note that my example has nothing media-specific in it. AT tool users
>> also do not see the content when it's read by a screen reader when the
>> reader is reading the normal flow of the page.
>
> One of the things that seems to be missing here is that the user of the
> screen reader must have a mechanism to read or ignore that alternative
> text: it's a user choice thing. So how does the screen reader go from
> "reading the normal flow of the page" to "taking a side trip to go read
> what this otherwise hidden stuff is about"? And given that this is now
> (again) apparently being targeted to screen readers only, what of those
> users who aren't blind that need the expanded text as well? How do they
> access content that is otherwise not in the normal flow? Is there a
> toggling mechanism for them? Discovery of the alternative text is a big
> part of the required functionality.

I've never used AT tools so I can't answer more specifically than "The
same way that the screen reader would jump to a @longdesc page, or
jump to the part of the page pointed to by @aria-describedby".

This mechanism doesn't need to be specific to AT users for what it's
worth. A browser for seeing users can expose this description in a
similar way that it exposes the link to @longdesc pages.

However I'm not sure that the @longdesc description is very fruitful.
I saw a trivial answer to one of the main concerns raised in the
beginning of this thread. I don't expect that it will change the fact
that a Formal Objection will be pursued or that the chair decision
will be appealed. So I'll just let those processes carry on.

The discussion about @hidden is a separate one though, but I'll pursue
that in a bug.

/ Jonas

Received on Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:13:14 UTC