Re: Request to publish HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives as a first public working draft

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 2:08 AM, Steven Faulkner
<faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jonas,
> I am unclear about what you are saying here:
>
> "My concern is that with this definition of alt, we'd instantly not
> only make a large body of content inaccessible. We'd also do AT users
> a disservice by telling AT software to hide the fact that there is an
> image there since the alt attribute was used."
>
> which definition of alt?
> In what context would we instantly make a large body of content inaccessible?

Sorry, I meant to say "incorrect" instead of "inaccessible".

We could define that the @alt content attribute contains replacement
text for the image, and that its presence indicates that AT users
should be presented with the alt text and not be told about the
existence of the image. And that putting a description (rather than
alternative text) would be incorrect.

However for existing documents out there that contain descriptions in
the alt, then this results in two problems:

1. All these documents are declared incorrect (and ideally someone
should spend time evangelizing and educating these authors)
2. Until the document is fixed, users of AT tools will be at a
disadvantage because they aren't being told about the existence of the
image.

/ Jonas

Received on Friday, 7 May 2010 09:57:33 UTC