Re: CP: role=img trumps empty alt (ISSUE-206: meta-generator)

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis, Sat, 4 Aug 2012 04:23:51 +0100:
> On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> I hereby offer an alternative change proposal that does NOT add any new
>> attribute:
>> 
>> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/RoleImgTrumpsEmptyAlt
>> 
>> Please do not hesitate to provide feedback!
> 
> I don't think we need "a signal that the image is significant but in
> lack of alternative text" as:
> 
> 1. Developers can already distinguish images that are not significant
> by adding @alt and images that are significant by omitting @alt.

Yeah, and that is a quite complicated thing: Add something if it is 
_not_ significant, and remove something if it _is_ significant. It is 
more natural to think "Add something to show that it is significant." 
Especially so, when the starting point is <img> elements that have an 
empty @alt in order to validate.

The problem we try to solve is this: Help generators signal that 
something is "significant" without being stamped as invalid.

The problem with an <img> that lacks the @alt attribute is that this 
may or may not be an error. (It is only in very specific cases that it 
isn't.) Thus, omitting is not a general solution. If it were, then we 
would not need @incomplete/@relaxed either. (My impression was that you 
supported @relaxed, but perhaps I misunderstood.) All the proposals, 
including mine, try to solve a common problem in a general way.

> 2. AT interested in exposing images that might be significant to end
> users already need to expose images with missing @alt.

Since this proposal suggests that generator developers should continue 
to use empty alt, then it necessary to add role=img if we want to make 
them interested in exposing it.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Saturday, 4 August 2012 04:11:48 UTC