- From: Al Gilman <Alfred.S.Gilman@IEEE.org>
- Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:09:59 -0500
- To: wai-xtech@w3.org
<note class="inDraft onProcess"> Earlier discussion on this point can be reviewed at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007Oct/thread.html#msg44 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007Nov/0012.html Please comment on this on the XTECH list. PFWG could reach consensus on some variant of this statement as early as Wednesday, 28 November or it could take longer depending on the nature of the commentary. </note> <premises> Let's note the following: WCAG2 is likely to become a recommendation before HTML5, and is reasonably likely to be a Rec for several years before HTML5. The Web has been under-performing as regards supplying good ALT text for images since 1997 when HTML4 was published with a syntactic requirement for @alt on all <img> elements. </premises> <position> HTMLWG should agree that authors SHOULD provide good text alternatives for all <img> elements as stated in WCAG2 Guideline 1.1. provisional URI: http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/#text-equiv </position> <position> WAI should agree that well-placed informative references to existing W3C accessibility Recommendations is a suitable way for the HTML5 specification to address this, more or less as it has been done in the Specification Guidelines Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-qaframe-spec-20050817/#address-other-topics </position> <position class="requirement"> WAI asserts that HTML5 should provide formal semantics bound to some markup pattern which enables a readily-followed technique for the part of Guidline 1.1 where it says <quote cite="http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/#text-equiv-all"> Decoration, Formatting, Invisible: If it is pure decoration, or used only for visual formatting, or if it is not presented to users, then it is implemented in a way that it can be ignored by assistive technology. </quote> WAI suggests that the markup pattern @alt="" is a 'cowpath' in the language of the HTML5 Principles, in that assistive technology is already in the practice of recognizing <img> elements with that @alt value as ignorable. <note class="inDraft"> Somebody please confirm or deny this. Do screen readers actually skip images with @alt=""? </note> </position> Al /self (chair hat off)
Received on Sunday, 25 November 2007 17:10:18 UTC