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

On Aug 24, 2009, at 10:24 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> Ian wrote:
>>> Steven, if you could describe for me the problem that exists in the
>>> HTML5 spec that your proposal solves, I would be more than happy to
>>> address said problem, and would be grateful for your proposal.
>>>
>>> Without a description of a problem, however, I do not intend to edit
>>> the spec on this topic.
>>
>> I believe Steven has now given much of the needed explanation.
>
> I've tried going through the e-mails on this thread again, but I  
> really
> haven't been able to find a description of a problem that we're  
> trying to
> solve here.
>
> Going through the cases you listed that you didn't list as cases  
> that no
> longer were being advocated as reasons to change the spec:

Thanks for going through these.

>
>> C) title / sole-image-in-paragraph exceptions not allowed as  
>> exceptions
>> in the case of unknown image contents:
>>
>> Steve explained here that this is because title does not render  
>> like alt
>> with images disabled or in text-only browsers:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0881.html
>>
>> Henri added that autogenerated title would possibly violate the  
>> spirit
>> of ATAG2:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0852.html
>>
>> Jan Richards suggested a "missing" marker as a way to flag images  
>> with
>> deliberately omitted alt, so that autogenerated descriptive text  
>> would
>> not be necessary but conformance checkers could continue to flag  
>> errors.
>> Henri agreed this might be a viable way to resolve the seeming  
>> conflict
>> between HTML5 and ATAG2 requirements:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0980.html
>
> I don't really understand what problem we're trying to solve here. Why
> would we give authors using WYSIWYG tools a license to not care about
> making their pages accessible? That seems backwards.

I'm not sure I can shed more light on the underlying issue here.

>
>
>> E) Requested reference to WCAG:
>>
>> Steve gave some explanation here and drew comparisons to HTML4 and  
>> SVG:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0885.html
>
> I would be open to including references to documents that could help
> authors and implementors -- UAAG, ATAG, WCAG, UTR #36, CHARMOD, etc.
> Indeed, we already have a reference to CHARMOD and UNIVCHARDET. If  
> there
> are other documents that would be helpful, I would be happy to link to
> them too. Steven, is this what you had in mind?

Can't speak for Steven, but that sounds like a really good set of  
references to me. I think the references should be somewhat more  
prominent than in HTML4 or SVG, maybe in the introduction instead of  
relegated to an appendix.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Tuesday, 25 August 2009 07:03:00 UTC