Re: Guidelines Implementation

At 01:41 PM 5/20/99 -0400, Bruce Bailey wrote:
>To your Check Point 1.1A:
>Valid ALT text:
>Allowed - ALT attribute value of "" 
>Only IF (NOT inside of A HREF) OR link is also referenced via text.  This
>can be tested by algorithm, so it is either allowed or not allowed.  (Human
>intervention/consideration is NOT needed.)

I believe that human consideration is always advisable for ALT="".  You can
test for situations where it is definitely bad, but you can't test
automatically for where it is good.

>Suggested for discussion:
>ALT="" is NOT allowed.  (This rule is much simpler!)  ALT=" " is
>permissible as an alternative.
>ALT=" " is treated as "suspicious" and generates a warning to the effect
>of: "Is this graphic purely decoration and devoid of content?"
>

It seems to be the small differences that generate the most heat.  This is
one of those.  After much digging I found what I believe to be the clearest
statement of the conclusion that was reached on this topic in the GL group:

<http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wai-gl-techniques-19980918.html#spacer-images>

That is to say, ALT="" has not been disallowed because there are cases
where it is the best practice.  Admittedly some of the argument hangs on
the fact that we can't rely on stylesheets to make layout tables obsolete
until they are better supported in user agents.  But all that reasoning
still stands.

The problem is, nowhere in the RECcommendation that Tim signed is this
explicitly stated.  It takes a) searching the working group archives and b)
authentication by the chairs that this decision was made and then not
reconsidered and overturned by a later deliberation of the group, to bring
the consensus resolution to light.

This is why I was emphasizing the need for a strong GL presence in the
process of "life after REC" including this step of detailing the
automatable tests related to the checkpoints and how they are related.

Al


>Rational:
>With the Lynx text browser, ALT="" hides the image (and any embeded link). 
>The image is completely invisible unless one issues a "view source"
>command.  Any associate link is likewise invisible, unless one issues a
>"view links" command.  (Exception: iff ALL links on a page are hidden in
>this way, Lynx will generate a warning message.)
>ALT=" " will generate [ ] in Lynx.  This might be viewed as unattractive
>and pointless, but at least the user knows that something is there.  If the
>[ ] is part of a link, it will (with the default settings) be assigned a
>link number and is (in any case) be able to be selected and activated as is
>the case with any other hypertext link.
>
>Bruce Bailey, DORS Webmaster
>http://www.dors.state.md.us/
>410/554-9211
>
>----------
>From: Chris Ridpath <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
>To: WAI ER IG List <w3c-wai-er-ig@w3.org>
>Subject: Guidelines Implementation
>Date: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 1:55 PM
>
>Hello all,
>
>As part of the evaluation and repair process, we need to create a set of
>specifications for implementing the WAI page author guidelines. The specs
>would be used by A-Prompt and Bobby in the design of our software. The
>specs should be written with the following goals:
>
>- precise enough for use by software programmers
>- simple enough for everyone to understand and comment upon
>- complete implementation of the WAI page author guidelines
>
>I've started a document that might fulfil these goals and would like your
>comments and suggestions. The doc is stored at:
>http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/Implementation.html
>
>This document is not complete and is a rough first draft!
>
>I would like to see the document finished reasonably soon (end of June
>perhaps) so that we can code the software.
>
>Please take a look and let me know if you have any comments.
>
>Chris
>

Received on Friday, 21 May 1999 09:29:23 UTC