Re: HTML Action Item 54 - ...draft text for HTML 5 spec to require producers/authors to include @alt on img elements.

On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 4:19 AM, Steven Faulkner
<faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
> i suggest you read the spec, as alt="" does not only mean it  is
> "purely decorative" it can also mean that the text alternative is
> supplied in the surrounding text.

Then you're using the same markup for two different semantics: one
case where that markup means the presence of an image is irrelevant
and the image should be ignored for the document to make sense, and
another case where the presence of the image is important and must be
announced by the UA for the document to make sense.


>
> One thing to note is that a legend is not currently required, so would
> not conform to WCAG 2.0, which requires a text alternative for all
> images.

It's been shown what accessibility arise from that, and we're
discussing solutions.  But saying that "a text alternative is required
for all images" for accessibility because an accessibility standard
says so begs the question.

>
>> b) An image that is vital to content (such as a gallery image) for
>> which the user simply did not provide text out of laziness:
>>
>> <img src="1100670787_6a7c664aef.jpg" ??? >
>
> that is simple, and is covered in the proposal, if the author has not
> provided a text alternative the author has produced a non conformant
> html5 document.

In which case, the author's tool, in an attempt to produce conformant
HTML, will insert alt="" or something even more harmful.  Making
something a conformance requirement won't force novice authors to
suddenly start writing good content, but it will encourage authoring
/tools/ to generate markup for the sake of conformance even if it
defeats the purpose of the conformance requirement.

Received on Wednesday, 21 May 2008 12:46:11 UTC