Re: draft guideline

Geoff wrote:
> I agree strongly that all images should have a text description of
> some kind, be it separate or located on the same page.  However, I
> think there are two categories of descriptions which should be
> considered: objective and critical (or interpretive).  Objective
> descriptions simply provide information about what's happening in
> the image; they let the user provide his or her own interpretation.
> They are similar to audio descriptions used in movies and television
> programs.  Critical or interpretive descriptions, on the other hand,
> can be used to provide either subjective opinion, where appropriate,
> *or* interpretive analysis which may not be immediately deduced from
> an objective description.  One need not exclude the other: a chart
> or graph may require an interpretive description in addition to an
> objective one.  I would think that, in most cases, an objective
> description would do the trick.  However, I think these two types of
> descriptions should be kept separate.  In other words, is it
> possible that some images will require two descriptions?

I think the need for subjective or critical comments is real but it
goes beyond images and WAI: it is about what W3C calls "Collaboration"
(I'm not sure what is the status of this effort right now, you can
check http://www.w3.org/Collaboration if you're interested) whereas
one should be able to annotate sections, images, entire documents on
the web, so that people can access to the comments when they read the
original document (with all the grouping, authorization, etc
necessary).

Received on Thursday, 17 July 1997 12:27:30 UTC