Re: Is longdesc a good solution? (was: Acessibility of <audio> and <video>)

On 9/8/08 1:22 AM, "Henri Sivonen" <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:
> On Sep 7, 2008, at 22:31, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> 
>> <video>: Would you propose the use of <object> instead of <video>
>> when HTML fallback for videos is wanted as well?
> 
> No. I would propose that users who don't see the video track play the
> video and listen to the soundtrack. When the content provider makes an
> additional effort for addressing the not seeing the video track case,
> I'd suggest the effort be put into making an alternative audio
> description sound track.

Where's the opportunity cost assessment on this one, then?

It is clearly less work to produce a text equivalent and associate it, than
to script, voice and associate a secondary audio description track. Audio
description is one of the hardest accessibility tasks for the average author
to tackle because it depends on inserting information precisely during
periods of silence, which are often not long enough for the information to
be conveyed. Which is partly why WCAG 2 Guideline 1.2 offers authors the
choice of full-text transcript as an alternative, at level A.

What you're proposing means that the fallback that's good enough for WCAG
would need to be done as a hack in HTML5, rather than a clean semantic
association.

-
m

Received on Monday, 8 September 2008 21:28:04 UTC