- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 08:28:44 -0600
- To: "Al Gilman" <Alfred.S.Gilman@ieee.org>, wai-xtech@w3.org
- Cc: "Tim Boland" <frederick.boland@nist.gov>, "Becky Gibson" <gibsonb@us.ibm.com>
Thank you very much, for moving the ALT issue forward on the the Protocols and Formats WG's agenda. On the process point, PFWG may want to consider that WAI is the W3C authority on accessibility; not HTML5. HTML5 must support WCAG. Under both WCAG1 and WCAG2, text alternatives for all <img> elements is a "priority 1" (respectively, "level 1"). To support accessibility, HTML5 must require what is necessary to implement WCAG. According to WCAG alt is required. Omitting the alt attribute for critical content contradicts WCAG and ATAG. If HTML5 doesn't consider this important enough to require, it might as well be saying WCAG is not really required either. In addition the HTMLWG's own Design Principles state: "Design features to be accessible to users with disabilities. Access by everyone regardless of ability is essential. This does not mean that features should be omitted entirely if not all users can make full use of them, but alternate mechanisms should be provided. The image in an img may not be visible to blind users, but that is a reason to provide alternate text, not to leave out images." [1] [1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-design-principles/Overview.html#accessibility Best Regards, Laura -- Laura L. Carlson
Received on Friday, 1 February 2008 14:28:57 UTC