Re: alt tags for graphs

FYG about @longdesc:

////////////////////////////////////////////

 Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org>
 Mar 12
    to WAI, Steven, Charles, Janina, Paul, rubys, mjs, Judy, Michael,
Philippe, Michael(tm), www-archive, Robin
  Dear WAI Interest Group Participants,

The W3C HTML Working Group today published the First Public Working Draft
of:
    HTML Image Description Extension
    http://www.w3.org/TR/html-**longdesc<http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc>

This specification ("HTML-longdesc") enables web authors to provide longer
text descriptions for complex images. It defines the "longdesc" attribute
to link descriptions with images in HTML5 content.

HTML-longdesc is an extension specification that is part of the HTML5
family of specifications [1], which enables it to evolve independently and
be finalized more rapidly. HTML-longdesc is part of W3C's work to ensure
that the Open Web Platform [2] is accessible to people with disabilities
[3].

Based on this publication, the following changes will be implemented in the
coming weeks:
* W3C validator [4] will validate longdesc as conforming HTML5.
* longdesc will be removed from the HTML obsolete features list.

Comments: Please send any comments on this Draft to the publicly archived
HTML Accessibility Task Force mailing list:
    public-html-a11y@w3.org
    by 10 April 2013

Working Groups: HTML-longdesc was developed by the HTML Accessibility Task
Force under the WAI Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG) and the HTML
Working Group (HTML WG). [5]

About the URI: The first URI above goes to the latest version of the
specification. The "dated" version of this Working Draft is: <
http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-**html-longdesc-20130312/<http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-html-longdesc-20130312/>>
The difference between these URIs are explained in Referencing and Linking
to WAI Guidelines and Technical Documents at: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/*
*linking <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/linking>>

Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you in advance for your
comments.
Feel free to circulate this message to other lists; please avoid
cross-postings where possible.

Regards,
~Shawn Henry, WAI Outreach
HTML Accessibility Task Force Co-Facilitators: Steve Faulkner, Charles
McCathie-Neville, Janina Sajka
HTML WG Chairs: Paul Cotton, Sam Ruby, Maciej Stachowiak
PFWG Chair: Janina Sajka
W3C Staff: Judy Brewer, Michael Cooper, Philippe Le Hégaret, Michael Smith

////////////////////////////////////////

Kind regards,

Frank M. Palinkas
Senior Technical Writer
Quixey, Inc., Mountain View, California
Mobile: +1 650 248 5315
Web Accessibility and Standards tutorials:
http://dev.opera.com/author/947856


On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 4:00 PM, David Woolley
<forums@david-woolley.me.uk>wrote:

> Mattingly, F Darrell wrote:
>
>>
>> I’m working on a project to teach mathematical concepts.  What is the
>> best manner to describe graphs, such as the one below
>>
>
> Mathematics is about being precise.  There is no such thing as an alt tag
> in HTML.  I think you mean an alt attribute.
>
> I don't think it is possible to answer the question without knowing the
> educational point that is being made in the particular case, however, I
> suspect what you really needed was longdesc, except that it was never
> usefully supported by mainstream browsers and may well have been removed.
>
> Without longdesc, I think, as a minimum, you will need to include a link
> to a textual description in the main text.
>
> alt, in this case, can really only convey enough for someone already
> familiar with the concepts to know what the intention of the diagram is.  I
> don't think it can cover enough for someone who is expected to learn those
> concepts.
> --
> David Woolley
> Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
> RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
> that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.
>
>
>