Re: Long desc for SMIL spec

The other problem for the person using a screen reader is that there is no
indication where the ascii art begins.  Therefore if this method is used,
someone would hear all of the dashes and words and then the description.
If this were an image it would be clear (image, caption, d-link). Perhaps
if the caption was first, then the ascii art followed by some sort of "end
figure" text, perhaps the "d" link, it might make it less confusing.

--wendy

At 06:59 AM 4/6/98 , Daniel Dardailler wrote:
>
>[this is thread started between Phil Hoschka, Mark and myself on
> adding textual description to the SMIL spec]
>
>Mark writing:
>> The more interesting part of this are the preformmated ascii art of
>> the timing sequences. These really need a written description
>> because they are really meaningless to the screen reader user as
>> just text.  
>> I am wondering if it won't be better to render these as
>> graphics and use >the alt and longdesc to describe them.
>
>
>Mark is refering to the series of diagrams drawn using plain text in
>the current SMIL spec. 
>
>Example (showing different length but parallel audio and video tracks
>represented using dash lines bounded by a | character):
>
><PRE>  
>   audio
>|----------|
>   video
>|----....------|
></PRE>
><P>Figure 6.1:  Effect of a delay on playout schedule for different
>                settings of the sync attribute
>
>DD:: I think the author should be allowed to use PRE and ascii art
>instead of more expensive (in size) images.
>
>So we need to come up with a new guideline to attach both a short and
>long description to PRE representing graphical information.
>
>For the short description, I think we should require a caption in the
>markup, following and preceeding the PRE used as graphics.
>
>The SMIL spec seems to cover that well (e.g. Figure 6.1)
>
>For the longdesc, I would fallback to a D link anchor at the end of
>the caption.
>
>So to illustrate what I mean on the example above: 
>
><PRE>  
>   audio
>|----------|
>   video
>|----....------|
></PRE>
><P>Figure 6.1: Effect of a delay on playout schedule for different settings
>           of the sync attribute. <A HREF=desc61.html class=d-link>D</A>
>
>Comments ?
> 
wendy chisholm
human factors engineer
trace research and development center
university of wisconsin - madison, USA

Received on Monday, 6 April 1998 12:12:44 UTC