Re: Revert Request

On 29 January 2012 22:30, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> Matthew Turvey, Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:15:35 +0000:

[cropping for brevity]

>> It seems there are parts of WAI-ARIA 1.0 where no one can agree on
>> what it actually specifies, or whether what it does apparently specify
>> is actually possible or even desirable.
>
> Which are the sections of ARIA 1.0 that you have in mind?

See, for example, brief discussion in
http://www.w3.org/2011/06/15-html-a11y-minutes.html

Specifically "aria-label or aria-describedby is not sufficiently
specified in the WAI-ARIA spec to include or exclude markup" and "Defs
are ambiguous so that's why we have different behavior in different
browsers."

>> This simple solution meets all the requirements:
>>
>> <a href=foo><img src=pic alt="*the purpose of the link*"></a>
>
> Most or all AT present the above as a link and not as an image.

Jaws 12/IE7/XP with default settings announces "*alt text*, linked
graphic". AT can present this information in whichever way is most
effective for users. So this is irrelevant.

>> If users need to be able to determine programmatically that the link
>> is a long description of the image, or authors want to put two links
>> on one image:
>>
>> <a href=foo rel=longdesc><img src=pic alt="*a programmatically
>> determinable long description link*"></a>
>
> No UA/AT support rel=longdesc. Hence: same problems as described above.

I can't see any problems here. None of the purported use cases
actually require UA/AT's to do anything special with a longdesc link,
other than expose it as a link. All UA/AT's currently support user
access to the linked long description. So this is irrelevant.

*If* any future use cases require a programmatically determinable long
description link, this _robust_ progressive enhancement technique
satisifes that requirement. But obviously, unless users actually need
this, it's just accessibility theatre.

> In Safari+VoiceOver, the @alt text of the <img> in this image map, is
> not presented to the user at all. Only the alt text of the <area>
> elements is presented. Last I checked, there were similar problems in
> other AT as well.

AT doesn't need to do anything with the alt text on the image in this
context, it just needs to present the alt text of the area elements; I
only included it for completeness. So this is irrelevant.

>> This universal design approach works for everyone, right now,
>
> Given what I described above, I fail to see how img@longdesc can
> currently be replicated with your above mentioned techniques.

Irrelevant quibbling aside, the approach I suggested meets all the
requirements and works for everyone, right now. I don't think this is
difficult to understand.

The only "problems" with this approach are: it doesn’t require changes
to accessibility APIs, software upgrades, browser add-ons, user
training, author training, or employing the services of an
accessibility specialist. In case I wasn't clear before, I see this as
a benefit.

> None of the above has any thing to do with ARIA.

Indeed.

-Matt

Received on Monday, 30 January 2012 19:29:19 UTC