RE: Is the Alt Attribute Dead? - Article on Updated F65

Jonathan,

 

I am first going to make a comment about F65 (because that is the focus of
my concern), and I will review the rest of the email, and comment later.

 

The important thing about F65 - yes, it is a failure technique - but failure
techniques are what evaluation and repair tool vendors build their tools
around - to identify conformance/non-conformance. And, in that respect,
failures are one of the most important kind of techniques we provide. Having
worked for such a tool vendor, and (like all of us) utilized these tools at
various times, their ability to impact the application of WCAG is
tremendous.

 

I share similar concerns about title, and validation, as well as our
approach to the new techniques - that they do not kill access features that
enjoy wide support now. This is a very hard and delicate balance to
transition to new(ish) technologies. And frankly, I am concened about our
(working groups) ability to provide good guidance. I know we *can* find a
correct balance, but the challenge upon and before us, is great...

 

* katie *

 

Katie Haritos-Shea 
Senior Accessibility SME (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)

 

Cell: 703-371-5545 |  <mailto:ryladog@gmail.com> ryladog@gmail.com | Oakton,
VA |  <http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/> LinkedIn Profile |
Office: 703-371-5545

 

From: Jonathan Avila [mailto:jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2014 12:25 PM
To: Haritos-Shea, Katie; Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Cc: David MacDonald; Bruce Bailey; Andrew Kirkpatrick; Joshue O Connor
Subject: RE: Is the Alt Attribute Dead? - Article on Updated F65

 

Katie, I can put a disclaimer in the article that says it doesn't
necessarily represent the views of organizations that I'm a member of.

 

As for reinforcing that F65 only applies to img, area, and input type image
- I'm very confused because this is a failure not a sufficient technique and
reinforcing the limitations of the failure would only strengthen the
position that using new techniques such as ARIA are definitely not failures
- which serves to promote new techniques even more.  Keeping a failure
general actually benefits the status quo.

 

A change that would benefit your position is to update my post to indicate
the ARIA10 sufficient technique contains images comprising the example still
have alt="" because the working group felt it was still important to
indicate these sub-component images as being decorative in relation to the
whole.   I would also likely thing we'd want to emphasize the lack of other
sufficient techniques as an indication that these methods are still
emerging.  

 

I did think about the title for a while and struggled to find a balanced
title.  Initially I had planned on saying something about the eventual
demise of alt or its relevance in the current environment.  But I felt like
the title was a legitimate question that people are or will ask and it
deserved a legitimate response.  The fact is that F65 and ARIA10 are big
changes and everyone has been silent on the topic.   Someone needed to
educate the community on the changes.  Alt text has a history of being an
over simplification for accessibility and constantly mis-used by the
community in the slang term "alt tag" as in "just give it an alt tag".  Many
people even people who claim to be experts always focus on "alt tags" and
make separate views for screen reader users.  As you know alt text is only
available to screen reader users - if you want to see alt text you are
forced to turn off all images.  I personally feel this is not an inclusive
attribute and it and the longdesc attribute have historically blocked access
to alternatives for people with low vision and cognitive impairments.  So
why the alt had a very important role, it's not inclusive to all people with
disabilities.

 

I spoke up during our meetings on the topic of accessible names with my
concerns over use of the title attribute on images.  I was concerned that
our recommendation went against the HTML specification and I was told by a
large group of people on the call that whether it was valid HTML or not
wasn't relevant and that title or ARIA could be used and that ARIA had
precedent over alt on the accessibility APIs.  I took the position of
majority of the group to support this and now I feel I'm being sold out that
privately people were supporting these changes but now in public no one is
willing to step forward and state in plain language what was said earlier in
the working group call.    

My blog post title certainly doesn't imply I believe alt is dead - but I do
believe it will be phased out for better more inclusive alternatives.

 

Jonathan

 

 

From: Haritos-Shea, Katie [mailto:katie.haritos-shea@chase.com
<mailto:katie.haritos-shea@chase.com> ] 
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 9:06 PM
To: Jonathan Avila; Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org> 
Cc: David MacDonald; Bruce Bailey; Andrew Kirkpatrick; Joshue O Connor
Subject: RE: Is the Alt Attribute Dead? - Article on Updated F65

 

Jonathan,

 

I did not know that you were the author of this article; please accept my
apologies for that.

 

We need to be very careful with our wording, especially WG members. You were
very clear about accessibility support being needed. 

 

But I, personally, would be more comfortable with being very clear about
exactly what kind of non-text content F65 is discussing by using text more
in line with the failure text, such as using "A primary change is the
allowance of new methods other than the alt attribute for non-text elements
for images or on images." (or of type "image")  and/or "Website teams now
have greater flexibility to provide text alternatives for non-text content
for images or on images." (or of type "image")

 

This will certainly stir up the discussion...:-)

 

My language was perhaps too strong; I regret wording it as I did. Forgive
me?

 

* katie *

 

Katie Haritos-Shea 
Senior Accessibility SME (WCAG/Section 508/ADA), Standards QA Architect
JPMC dCE eCAT 

 

JPMC Digital | Wilmington, DE | Katie.Haritos-Shea@Chase.com
<mailto:Katie.Haritos-Shea@Chase.com>  | Office: 302-282-1439 | Ext: 21439 |
Cell: 703-371-5545 |  <http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/>
LinkedIn Profile

 

From: Jonathan Avila [mailto:jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 8:26 PM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org> 
Cc: Haritos-Shea, Katie; David MacDonald; Bruce Bailey; Andrew Kirkpatrick;
Joshue O Connor
Subject: RE: Is the Alt Attribute Dead? - Article on Updated F65

 

Katie, as you know I am the author of the post.  Sure the title may seem
provocative - but it wasn't meant to upset people -it was meant to start a
larger discussion in the community that had not yet begun.

 

I don't think I imply in any way that F65 is a failure for anything other
than img, area, and input type image.  My statement that you have
frustration over "A primary change is the allowance of new methods other
than the alt attribute for non-text elements (e.g. images)." And "Website
teams now have greater flexibility to provide text alternatives for non-text
content." was intended to harmonize with the language of ARIA 10 "ARIA10:
Using aria-labelledby to provide a text alternative for non-text content".
WAI's own technique ARIA10 states "alternatives for non-text content" - so
I'm not sure why my publicizing this accepted technique is unexpected.

 

When I was thinking of different types of non-text content that could
benefit from alternatives I was thinking of elements that don't support alt
such as glyphs, character entities, poster images on video elements, SVG,
etc.  I was thinking of the allowance of title on elements as indicated by
the ARIA specification and the HTML5 Platform Accessibility mapping guides.
I feel confident that for F65 and ARIA10 I was very clear that these methods
had to be accessibility supported.

 

If there is any mis-information in my post I'm happy to update it.  Please
feel free to comment on our blog and share your thoughts.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jonathan

 

From: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL [mailto:ryladog@gmail.com
<mailto:ryladog@gmail.com> ] 
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 6:57 PM
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org> 
Cc: ryladog@gmail.com <mailto:ryladog@gmail.com> ;
Katie.Haritos-Shea@Chase.com <mailto:Katie.Haritos-Shea@Chase.com> ; David
MacDonald; Bruce Bailey; Andrew Kirkpatrick; 'Joshue O Connor'
Subject: FW: Is the Alt Attribute Dead? - Article on Updated F65
Importance: High

 

 

Folks,

 

Please see the note I wrote below concerning SSB's article interpreting the
newly updated F65. I am sure this is just one of many articles, but, this
was one of my concerns all along. It takes so very little for
mis-information to get spread around so quickly..

 

While this article has generally good information and recommendations, this
one aspect, not being specific that it only applies to images, in
communication, is going to cause so much heart-ache by saying."A primary
change is the allowance of new methods other than the alt attribute for
non-text elements (e.g. images)." And "Website teams now have greater
flexibility to provide text alternatives for non-text content."
Article URL:
<https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2014/04/08/is-the-alt-attribute-dead/>
https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2014/04/08/is-the-alt-attribute-dead/ 

 

The original email came into the our Accessibility Team office today from
another employee who gets SSB Bart news blasts...

 

 

* katie *

 

Katie Haritos-Shea 
Senior Accessibility SME (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)

 

Cell: 703-371-5545 |  <mailto:ryladog@gmail.com> ryladog@gmail.com | Oakton,
VA |  <http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/> LinkedIn Profile |
Office: 703-371-5545

 


Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 6:23 PM
Sender Removed
Subject: RE: Is the Alt Attribute Dead? - Please Review

 

Sigh...Yeah..No,

 

See, I knew this mis-understanding was coming, and I fought this - my
recommendation was to include alt for images *with* aria-labelledby
attribute (w/id), aria-label attribute and title - for a limited time period
(say 3 years), to drive ARIA uptake while providing full backwards
compatibility. I did have support for that idea, but, not by enough of the
right folks, so..

 

Please NOTE:  This failure is *ONLY* for images. The SSB article says
"non-text elements (e.g. images)", which is wrong. It is not 'an example of
one way' or 'such as' on images, it is only allowed for images AND only in
environments/situations where aria-labelledby(w/id)/aria-label/title are
proven to be accessibility supported. It is not intended for any other type
of non-text content.

 

This is the updated Failure:

F65: Failure of Success Criterion 1.1.1 due to omitting the alt attribute or
text alternative on img elements, area elements, and input elements of type
"image".
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/F65.html 

 

* katie *

 

Katie Haritos-Shea 

 

Sender Removed
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 1:49 PM
To: EC AccessibilityTeam
Subject: Is the Alt Attribute Dead?

 

 

  _____  

Is the Alt Attribute Dead?
<https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2014/04/08/is-the-alt-attribute-dead/> 

In March 2014 the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group
(WG) published several new ARIA techniques for WCAG 2 and updated several
failure techniques. A primary change is the allowance of new methods other
than the alt attribute for non-text elements (e.g. images). This post serves
to describe the change in position, its roots, and implications for use. A
New sufficient technique to promote ARIA for elements that don't support alt
The sufficient technique ARIA10 was created to provide an example [...]

SSB BART Group <https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog>  / Tue, 08 Apr 2014
14:27:03 GMT

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