Re: WCAG considering amending F65 to NOT fail missing ALT text if title or aria-label is present

This F65 alt va. ARIA discussion has been quite long already, so I try to be brief.

I've read all this with some concern since I had been the one to put in the aria-label additions in F65 after discussing the planned changes in the HTML5-ARIA Techniques TF. At first I had been quite reluctant to accept what I perceived as a softening of F65, but I think the change is OK on balance. Let me explain why.

The intended change of F65 is driven by the aim to publish more ARIA Techniques to establish ARIA as part of the toolbox, hopefully to be picked up by devs to make all sorts of fancy web stuff more accessible. I believe that this will be seen as rightful aim by most - after all, we can't stop the fancy stuff out there, we can only hope to provide the means to make it accessible. If the ARIA Techniques help doing that, this also requires some revisiting of Common Failures to even out the inconsistencies that Jared has pointed out. (To be more precise, this is necessary if we stick to the rule that finding a failure in the test of a Failure Technique will fail the SC in all cases.)

Would the softening of F65 make any difference? I don't think so. Most alt offenders leave alt empty or out altogether, or leave in the meaningless alt texts (file names) of CMS prompts or defaults. This is not the lot that ponders WCAG Techniques and Failures. Those being aware of ARIA at all are already in a select group of developers that strive to make stuff accessible, and mostly doing so with discrimination.

Best, Detlev

-- 
Detlev Fischer
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Received on Tuesday, 26 November 2013 20:41:15 UTC