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

Vallidation is a start.  It can show you where to og when evaluating for 
accessibility.  We are often asked to report to other than authors for 
purposes of not necessarily requesting changes.  I don't see an edge case 
here at all.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lachlan Hunt" <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au>
To: "David Poehlman" <david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com>
Cc: "Steven Faulkner" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>; <public-html@w3.org>; "W3C 
WAI-XTECH" <wai-xtech@w3.org>; <wai-liaison@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: HTML Action Item 54 - ...draft text for HTML 5 spec to require 
producers/authors to include @alt on img elements.



David Poehlman wrote:
> Philip has this correct.  There are many instances in which a requirement
> for validation is removed from the authoring path.

No, he doesn't.  Whoever is in control of making changes to the page
should be sufficient, even if they weren't the original author of the
page.  Optimising for edge cases is not a reasonable thing to do.

Besides, if the aim is to check the how appropriate the alt text is for
a page, then it doesn't matter what the HTML5 spec says.  Evaluating
accessibility is a largely non-machine checkable exercise and trying to
grind the conformance criteria down to a boolean yes/no answer that can
be offered by a machine does little to improve accessibility.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Thursday, 22 May 2008 13:25:41 UTC