Re: feedback requested on WAI CG Consensus Resolutions on Text alternatives in HTML 5 document

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> 
> On Aug 16, 2009, at 2:37 AM, Steven Faulkner wrote:
> 
>> hi maciej, thanls for providing this fedback and analysis.
>> notes
>> The consensus document is not my document it is 
>> feedback/recomendations from the following W3C WAI Working Groups on 
>> the HTML 5 spec: Authoring Tools Working Group (AUWG) 
>> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/>, Protocols & Formats Working Group (PFWG) 
>> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/>, User Agent Working Group (UAWG) 
>> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/>, and Web Content (WCAG WG) 
>> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/>.
>>
>> in regards to:
>> (3) The Consensus Resolutions document does not have the "private 
>> communication" exception.
>> and
>>
>> (5) The spec has much more extensive advice about what should go in 
>> the alt attribute than the Consensus Resolutions, including common 
>> particular cases such as images as link content, or CAPTCHAs.
>>
>> the consensus document is not meant to be a replacement for current 
>> spec text,  it contains recommendations for modifications and 
>> additions based on a WAI review.
> 
> I guess it wasn't totally clear to me which aspects of the document were 
> recommendations, or at least, what concrete changes are requested. I 
> didn't think it was meant to be literal spec text, since in some cases 
> it says what the HTML5 spec should recommend.
> 
> Based on what you said above, I'm going to assume my points (3) and (5) 
> were incidental and not meant to suggest spec changes. That leaves the 
> following differences:
> 
> (1) The Consensus Resolutions document includes ARIA techniques 
> (@aria-labeledby and @role="presentation") for labeling an image, the 
> spec currently does not.
> (2) The Consensus Resolutions document does allow <figure> <legend> like 
> the spec, but it does not allow @title or a heading for an image-only 
> section to describe an image. The current spec allows this, only in the 
> case where the contents of the image are unknown.
> (4) The Consensus Resolutions document includes @aria-describedby as an 
> choice for optional long descriptions.
> (6) The Consensus Resolutions proposal recommends an explicit reference 
> from HTML5 to WCAG 2.0.
> (7) The Consensus Resolutions document suggests that alt="" (empty alt) 
> without role="presentation" on the same element should trigger a 
> non-fatal validator warning that recommends adding role="presentation".
> 
> I would appreciate if you could point out any important differences I 
> missed. I'd also like to determine what changes if any are suggested to 
> the spec for each of these, and what WAI's justifications are. I am 
> optimistic, because I believe the current spec is pretty close to what 
> is desired, so we may be able to find consensus on text equivalents for 
> images.
> 
> I will add that justifications for (1) and (4) are pretty clear to me. 
> There is wide agreement to integrate ARIA with HTML5, once ARIA is 
> integrated, ARIA techniques should clearly be allowed. So what I'd like 
> to understand whether (2), (6) and (7) are meant to be change requests, 
> and if so, their justification and relative importance.

One that that has concerned me for a long time is that there is no 
rationale document captured for the decisions that have been made in the 
preparation of the current HTML5 draft[1].

If there is a difference of opinion on three very specific points, would 
it be possible to simultaneously gather up the justification and 
relative importance of the alternative proposal that is contained in the 
current Editor's Draft?

> I'm trying to break things down like 
> this to make sure we are all communicating clearly.
> 
>> I have taken it upon myself to work an alternative version of the spec 
>> that impacts on both of these parts, namely to move many of the 
>> examples to a dedicated document dealing with text alternatives best 
>> practice [1] , but this is not as a result of a recommendation to do 
>> so contained within the WAI document.
>>
>> I will respond further soonish
> 
> Looking forward to it!
> 
> Regards,
> Maciej

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Aug/0054.html

Received on Sunday, 16 August 2009 11:52:18 UTC