Re: A presentational img?

Some comments to Steve's comment:

James said:
> "contact": <img src="contact.png">
> "about us": <a href="/path/about_us.html"><img src="contact.png"></a>

> [...] As is, it's unacceptable to state that these images are 
> presentational, because it is in the best interest of the spec 
> editors, browser vendors, AT users, and AT vendors to make sure 
> rendering engines provide the most accessible output, even with the 
> worst possible markup:
> 
> <img src="asdfhjklafds_gibberish_12347612394786.png">
> 
> W3C process requires that, in order for HTML 5 to reach Candidate 
> Recommendation phase, the Working Group will have to prove on each 
> part of the spec, that two rendering engines have implemented the 
> requirement. Despite what is currently in the HTML 5 spec, I don't 
> believe any of the major browser vendors will decrease the 
> accessibility of their rendering engines in order to make <img 
> src="contact.png"> presentational, because it would be a user 
> interface regression.

Steve replied:
>> Steve Faulkner, Tue, 10 May 2011 19:20:22 +0100:
>>> hi james, just a point of clarification:
>>> 
>>> an <img> without alt is not mapped to role=presentation in HTML5
>>> only <img alt="">

My comment: Steve, the two issues are related. Because, if it is 
unacceptable to prevent AT from presenting '<img src="contact.png">' as 
'contact', then it should also be unacceptable to prevent them from 
presenting <img alt="" title="Contact" src=i > as "Contact". To treat 
empty alt="" as role="presentation" would be such a prevention.

For example, to say that 

	<img alt="" title="Contact" >

is equal to 

	<img role="presentation" title="Contact" >

would prevent AT from looking into the @title content of both the 
former and the latter IMG element.

Clearly, it is *dangerous* to use role=presentation on an IMG element: 
An author should know what she/he is doing, before preventing AT from 
gleaning information from an IMG. And if an empty alt="" gets the same 
meaning as role="presentation", then it becomes as dangerous to use 
alt="" as it is to use role="presentation".
-- 
Leif H Silli

Received on Tuesday, 10 May 2011 20:30:15 UTC