- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 19:03:28 -0400 (EDT)
- To: WAI AU Guidelines <w3c-wai-au@w3.org>
I propose rewriting the introduction to guideline 4, in order to clarify that there is more to accessible content than textual equivalents (although those are of fundamental importance.) The introduction to Guideline 4 currently reads: Textual equivalents, including "alt-text", long descriptions, video captions, and transcripts are absolutely necessary for the accessibility of all images, applets, video, and audio files. However, the task of producing these equivalents is probably the most time-consuming accessibility recommendation made to the author. The authoring tool can provide various mechanisms to assist the author in generating textual equivalents while ensuring that the author can determine whether the textual equivalent accurately reflects the information conveyed by the multimedia object. Including professionally written descriptions for all multimedia files (e.g., clip-art) packaged with the tool will: * Save users time and effort; * Cause a significant number of professionally written descriptions to circulate on the Web; * Provide users with convenient models to emulate when they write their own descriptions; * Show authors the importance of description writing. This will lead to an increase in the average quality of descriptions used. I suggest that we move the statement about including pre-written alternatives for clip art to a technique for the relevant checkpoint, and that we use the following text for the introduction: Generating accessibility content, including textual alternatives for images, expansion for acronyms, audio descriptions of video, and structural information, can be one of the most challenging aspects of web design, and is one of the most fundamental requirements of accessible content. Automation of the mechanics of this process, by prompting authors to include the relevant information at appropriate points, can greatly ease the process for authors. Where such information can be mechanically determined (e.g., the function of icons in an automatically-generated navigation bar, or expansion of acronyms from a dictionary) and offered as a choice for the author the tool will assist the author, at the same time as it reinforces the need for such information and the author's role in ensuring that it is used appropriately in each instance. Charles McCN --Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org phone: +1 617 258 0992 http://www.w3.org/People/Charles W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI MIT/LCS - 545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139, USA
Received on Monday, 16 August 1999 19:03:28 UTC