Longdesc D-link

Last month there was a meeting of the Chairs of the different working groups
( GL, AU, UA, PF etc) to figure out what the best approach might be for the
Longdesc  D-link discussion.   The goal is to figure out how to coordinate
the Guidelines for Page Authors, the guidelines for browsers and the
guidelines for Tools.

What we came up with as a conclusion to bring back to our respective groups
was

1)  the recommendation should be to use LONGDESC always.
2)  since LONGDESC doesn't work now - we should recommend they also use
D-LINK for the time being.  (or hidden D-links where an invisible gif is
given "D-Link" as the alt and links to the longdescription)

The reason we didn't recommend using D-Link as the primary and long term
solution is

1)  It cannot be hidden and many sites will not want to use it for that
reason.
2)  Longdesc can have the future potential of allowing the User to cause the
Longdesc's to be visible or not.
3)  UA group said that browser mfgrs would not be receptive to trying to
hide D-Links
4)  We can work on proxies and plug in solutions to adding a Longdesc
exposing function to old browsers.

In short, the conclusion we came to after long discussion was that  D-Link
is not a good long term solution where LONGDESC is.  -  and there are ways
to make LONGDESC a better short term solution.

This is a short synopsis of a long description.  If this isn't clear I'll
try to write a longer description.  We are interested in your thoughts and
discussion.

Gregg



-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Human Factors
Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
Director - Trace R & D Center
Gv@trace.wisc.edu, http://trace.wisc.edu/
FAX 608/262-8848
For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu

Received on Monday, 14 September 1998 01:06:55 UTC