RE: longdesc - beside the box

Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> 
> I think we need this for video, too. How about a @transcription
> attribute on the <img> element (and <video> and <audio>) that contains
> the link outright? Can be a link to some other element on the same
> page or a different page altogether.

LOL

Silvia, you have described @longdesc, and I agree, we need a mechanism
like this for any and all visual data (and likely <audio> as well).

There is a strong case to be made for re-instating @longdesc and perhaps
even enhancing it (such as allowing it on video - or rather for the
@poster - and audio) as opposed to re-inventing it again under a new name.
(http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2010/08/16/comic-update-alone-in-the-pitch-bla
ck-dark/#comment-32134) 

> 
> It would be displayed in text-only browsers instead of the media and
> be keyboard focusable for AT users to be read out and followed.

The 'discoverability' of this not-normally-seen (aka discoverable)
metadata is indeed the current problem with @longdesc today. Our problem
is that it is apparently out of scope for us to tell UAs how to process
attribute values with this level of precision. If this were not the case I
would propose that all UAs have the user-option of an unobtrusive chrome
icon that signaled that @longdesc were present on the page, and move the
ability to access the content of @longdesc into the contextual menu. In
discussing @longdesc with the developers of NVDA, they concurred that this
would make a lot of sense for screen reading technology as well. 

[BTW, with a combination of the TellMeMore Opera
extension(https://addons.opera.com/addons/extensions/details/tellmemore/1.
2/) combined with Opera's native handling of @longdesc today, you can see
this kind of setup in action - we do need to find Chaals some icon love
however...]

JF

Received on Monday, 25 April 2011 19:21:07 UTC