@longdesc implemented as ARIA construct

I hereby formally propose that role="img" permits a long description 
link inside. That is: there should be some way to make sure that a long 
description link inside a role="img" element, is presented to AT users 
as a link.

One motiviation for this request is to allow @longdesc be implemented 
as a normal link. And I hope ARIA will explain how AT which already 
support @longdesc should treat @longdesc when they see a parallel long 
description link. (They should probably ignore the @longdesc and use 
the long description link instead.)

Currently, ARIA requires AT to treat children of role="img" elements as 
presentational. And, even if you point to a link inside the role="img" 
elment via aria-labelledby, the link is only presented as a text 
string, without link features.

The method I would propose is that the first link with a rel="longdesc" 
or aria-longdesc="true" attribute inside the role="img" element, is 
treated as a long description link and presented to the user user as a 
link.

This idea was first described in the following letters, which I 
recommend to read for more detail:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2010Sep/0030
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2010Sep/0031
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2010Sep/0429
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2010Sep/0033
-- 
leif halvard silli
HTMLwg invited expert

Received on Wednesday, 15 September 2010 17:37:02 UTC