Re: One more thought about requiring the alt to add to the pile

Ok so you have provided one more class "map sites" still don't add up to
much.

>previously mentioned, Rorschach tests.

There is no consensus or even tide of opinion towrds this being considered a
legitimate use case for omitting the alt
both WCAG 1 and 2 conflict with this.
So really it's just you who thinks this is legit. I haven't seen *anybody*
else on the HTML WG defend your opinion on this.

We shall await the PF WG's advice on this and other matters related to your
definition of "text alternative" or "alternative text"

I did note what Henri sivonen had to say[1] on the subject in IRC, perhaps
you missed it:

[10:54] <hsivonen> Hixie: btw, I think WCAG 2.0 is rather reasonable about
the inkblot case and the HTML5 example takes "alternative" too literally



 [1]http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20080414#l-89

See Ya!


On 18/04/2008, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 18 Apr 2008, Steven Faulkner wrote:
> >
> > The spec[1] currently states: "In some cases, the image is a critical
> > part of the content. .... In a rare subset of these cases, there might
> > be no alternative text available. "
> >
> > Given that it is only in very rare cases (a "rare subset" of "some
> > cases") where it is considered legitimate in the spec to leave out the
> > alt attribute. And these "rare subset" of cases are a clearly defined
> > class of site "a photo upload site".  Would it not be better to
> > require/encourage the relatively small number of AT vendors to provide a
> > feature that exposes images with alt="" (in case the photo site CMS has
> > been designed ot add alt="" automatically), that a user can enable when
> > he/she visits these sites?.
>
> It's more than just photo upload sites. For example, the street view
> feature in Google Maps, or, as previously mentioned, Rorschach tests.
>
> Also, there are plenty of decorative images on these sites that need to
> have alt="" and that aren't critical images.
>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>



-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

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