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

On 17/08/2009 11:38, Steven Faulkner wrote:
> hi benjamin,
> <p>As you can see from the chart below, sales increased in 2008:</p>
> <img alt="" src="chart.png">
>
> from my understaning this does not conform to WCAG 2.0.

That matches my understanding.

But the example wasn't supposed to conform to WCAG 2.0 or even my idea 
of best practice: it was supposed to be an example of the "variety of 
authoring practice around 'alt'" that makes simply assuming an "img" 
with alt="" will never need exposure to AT unsafe.

I think it's generally best for AT to ignore such "img" elements by 
default (when they aren't needed to help generate labels). But I do 
think a mode where even these "img" elements are exposed has user value, 
given the alternative is to make users dig through a DOM Inspector or 
source code.

Example use-case: Joe is a blind advanced screen reader user putting 
together a presentation about his company's performance over the past 
year. He goes to the corporate wiki and finds references to charts for 
sales in 2008 and profit/loss margins in 2008, but can't find them when 
reading through the page. He switches to a mode that exposes even images 
with alt="" and retrieves the charts based on the document sequence.

Like I said originally, this use case is "tendentious". People can take 
different views about whether it's practical to support.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Received on Monday, 17 August 2009 15:20:53 UTC