Re: Audience Based Validator User Interface (ISSUE-206)

Hi Sam,

> And to Laura (and others): Does the presence of at least one warning or
> information message in the results when validating pages which are properly
> marked up with generator-unknown-alt attributes satisfy your criteria as a
> "teachable moment", or do you require that such pages be marked as invalid?

I think that it would take three things:

1. A warning for "generator-unknown-alt"/"incomplete" on the results
page by default; and
2.  Info in the the spec that all validators are expected to a warn
for "generator-unknown-alt"/"incomplete" possibly with screenshots in
the spec to help validator developers get it right; and
3. A link for "generator-unknown-alt"/"incomplete" warnings that
points to additional info so that people who want to fix
"generator-unknown-alt"/"incomplete" have guidance on how to do so.
(This could be used for missing alt too for that matter.)

At one time Mike was working on a pilot validator implementation [1]
that triggered text "expected to reference additional guidance on text
alternatives in WCAG support materials". This would  directly help
facilitate more perceivable content. It would hold a real opportunity
for validators to help educate by directly pointing good authors who
encountered "generator-unknown-alt"/"incomplete", to advice on how to
fix the problem. Currently, no teachable moment exists for authors who
use tools that insert "generator-unknown-alt"/"incomplete".

Without a mockup of the UI it is difficult to fully commit but I think
this could work.

Thanks for asking.

Best Regards,
Laura
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2010Apr/0165.html
-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Monday, 27 August 2012 20:37:34 UTC