- From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
- Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 00:41:55 -0800
- To: "'Matthew Turvey'" <mcturvey@gmail.com>, "'Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis'" <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Cc: "'Leif Halvard Silli'" <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>, "'Silvia Pfeiffer'" <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>, "'Laura Carlson'" <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>, "'Sam Ruby'" <rubys@intertwingly.net>, "'Paul Cotton'" <Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com>, "'Maciej Stachowiak'" <mjs@apple.com>, "'HTML WG'" <public-html@w3.org>
Matthew Turvey wrote: > > Removing the HTML-A11Y-TF's "no visual encumbrance" and "no default > indicator" constraints would certainly improve perceivability for > sighted users, and the range of authoring options available :) > It would be significantly more helpful if you bothered to try to understand what those requirements actually state; specifically that the visual encumbrance not be injected *in the web page* by the browsers, because (as has been pointed out more times than I care to recall) this has an artistic impact on the visual design of the page, a fact that even Jonas acknowledged as a problem in his Change Proposal: "This is because page designers often have quite strict requirements on the visual appearance of the page and it would likely negatively impact the level of accessibility support if contents specifically for for example screen readers had to be provided within those requirements." http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/DeprecateLongdesc Contrast that with proof of concept solutions such as the Opera "Tell Me More" extension, which places the visual indicator in the browser chrome. Note that if the author does not have those kinds of design restrictions, a possible solution might also be Dirk Ginader's jQuery solution, which leverages the @longdesc attribute with an on-screen indicator. As well, if the sighted end user is more concerned with having the longer description visually indicated over "artistic purity" they could use a plugin such as the Firefox "Longdesk" solution: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/longdesk/ (which I have brought to the attention of the WG on more than one occasion.) Both of these solutions are in circulation today, and both work with @longdesc. All 3 of these solutions also support the 3 key requirements of discoverability, choice to consume or not consume, and preservation of HTML structured content; requirements that using aria-describedby with hidden or off-screen content simply cannot deliver. If however you Matt don't have those same artistic constraints, then by all means you are welcome to provide any type of linking mechanism to your longer textual description you desire: use an actual link, resurrect the "D" link if you want, place the long description in the same page, hide it, don't hide it, feel free to do whatever you please. There are no "accessibility police" that will track you down and condemn your actions. Just do not expect that because it works for *you* that it is the only acceptable solution for every other author or user on the web. The arrogance of that kind of suggestion is mind-boggling, simplistic and significantly more "controlling" than the flexibility that those in favor of retaining @longdesc have shown. JF
Received on Wednesday, 1 February 2012 08:42:41 UTC