- From: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:57:36 +0000
- To: Adrian Bateman <adrianba@microsoft.com>, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, "L. David Baron" <dbaron@dbaron.org>
- Cc: HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>, Paul Cotton <Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com>, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
Hi Adrian, Maciej, Anne and David (note: if there is a more approriate implementor representative this email should go to please advise) The HTML5 specification specifies and recommends the use of the title attribute to mark up a variety of text content including captions for images and short footnotes. I am seeking your feedback as I consider that HTML5 specification currently includes informative and normative authoring and conformance text that relies upon non existent browsers implementations. I filed an number of related bugs which have been closed wontfix and consequently escalated them to issues, I have also prepared a request to reopen on a related issue: ISSUE-182: Advice in spec about annotations promotes inaccessible content http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/182 ISSUE-190: Replace poor coding example for figure with multiple images http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/190 re-open issue 80 (title attribute used as caption) http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/notitlev2 For the text cited in these issues to be requiring and/or recommending use of the title attribute, it should expected that resulting content will be available to any user via the inbuilt browser mechanisms for content display. If this is not a reasonable expectation can you provide details as to why it is not? As implemented in browsers (including the contexts noted above), the content contained in the title attribute is available to users of pointing devices. It is not available to keyboard users or alternative input devices such as single switches. It is also not available to users of touch screen devices such as tablets and smart phones. Given that advice in the HTML5 specification should either match current implementations or what is expected to be implemented, can you please provide information about when it is expected that the display of title attribute content will be available to non pointing device users and users of touch screen devices? There is a non-normative implementation suggestion to provide device independent access: "For example, a visual user agent could make elements with a title attribute focusable, and could make any focused element with a title attribute show its tooltip under the element while the element has focus. This would allow a user to tab around the document to find all the advisory text." [1] Do any implementors have concrete plans to implement device independent display of title attribute content? (I asked this question approx 9 months ago, at that time there was no commitment forthcoming [2]) If there ARE concrete plans, do any implementors plan to employ the implementation method suggested in HTML5? i.e. make any element with a title attribute focusable and presumably included in the default tab order? [1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-title-attribute-0 [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Apr/0468.html -- with regards Steve Faulkner Technical Director - TPG www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives - dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/ Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
Received on Monday, 12 December 2011 11:55:23 UTC