Re: longdesc spec text

On re-reading past exchanges I think I misstated my intent, which is that I think there should be an option for *indicating* that a long description exists, not actually replacing the image with the long description.  And if a long description is available, any user should be able to access it.  As such, I think the text is fine.

Geoff/NCAM


On 4/26/11 1:13 PM, "Laura Carlson" <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Ben, Geoff, Jan, and everyone,

Ben wrote [1]:

> In general, I don't think these requirements should be translated into
> MUST or SHOULD UI requirements in conforming UAs, but rather into
> suggested UI, as I think the markup spec should be dictating semantics
> not UI.

Ben, do you think that it would be an improvement to change the user
agent bullet for the longdesc spec text [1] to something like:

"If a longdesc attribute is present...

User agents should allow users to follow such description links. To
obtain the corresponding description link, the value of the attribute
must be resolved relative to the element. User agents are encouraged
to  consult User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG 2.0) and its
implementation documents to provide device independent mechanisms to
access the description content. Since an img element may be within the
content of an a element, the user agent's mechanism in the user
interface for accessing the "longdesc" resource of the former must be
different than the mechanism for accessing the href resource of the
latter."

Geoff, you mentioned previously [3] that you preferred any longdesc
default indicator to be a MAY, and for there to be a user-preference
setting for displaying longdesc values when present. Would the spec
text above work for you?

Jan, do you have advice for improving the spec text [2] or the change
proposal itself [4]? Anyone else have ideas?

Thanks.

Best Regards,
Laura

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Apr/0638.html
[2] http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld-spec-text.html
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Apr/0165.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc
--
Laura L. Carlson