- From: Harry Loots <harry.loots@ieee.org>
- Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:56:28 +0100
- To: HTML4All <list@html4all.org>,HTML4All <list@html4all.org>,"Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch>,"Joshue O Connor" <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>
- CC: wai-liaison@w3.org,"'Tomas Caspers'" <tomas@tomascaspers.de>,wai-xtech@w3.org,public-html@w3.org
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:25:17 +0200, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: > (Leaving aside the question of validity and focusing on the effect > on users) I am with Ian here. Adding magic values is likely to mess > up existing workflows from user agents through to authoring tools, > system evaluation tools (the sort of thing that the people who > currently really care about getting tehir HTML right actually use), > and even websites explaining how to write good web pages. Are we saying that once the tool has been published it can not be changed to allow for changes in the way the code is presented? > Leaving out the alt attribute where you don't know anything about what > would be a good value (whether you are a second-rate tool that > never asked, or a lazy or second-rate author that never bothere to > think about the answer - and I really do mean that to sound at > least as judgemental as it does) is the simplest approach to > allowing those who are doing a decent job to improve the web overall. I cannot agree with this viewpoint: we share the viewpoint that where ALT has been provided it is assumed to have been provided with good intentions, ie, to describe the image to users who may benefit from ALT. On equal terms with this statement where developers deliberately add ALT=" " let's assume for the moment that they do so in the understanding that AT will ignore the image and skip to next segment of text content. Based on the above development practices, we have two scenarios: If ALT is used as described above, users who read or hear the text alternative to the visual content are presented with either the ALT description or nothing. In the case where ALT has been ignored due to laziness, ignorance, or whatever other reason, the same group of people described above may benefit if the UA announces or inserts text to the effect 'ALT missing/omitted/not supplied/AWOL' or whatever words we choose to tell the user the developer is lazy, second rate or simply ignorant of their needs. If the words 'ALT not supplied/whatever' is heard/appears, the user knows that an image appeared in the content; they do not know if it has value, but at least they can ask someone who can view or see the image if it contains information of relevance. If ALT="" is used for this scenario then the user will not know there is an image and will not be able to do anything about it. Regards Harry
Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2008 12:25:37 UTC