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Re: Longdesc vs d

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Oct 28, 2003 10:20AM

To echo what Jukka said, here is a quote from the WebAIM tutorial on
accessible images (found at http://www.webaim.org/techniques/images/6):

<quote>

6.2 Methods of Providing a Long Description

There are several ways of providing a long description for images. I
have listed these options below, in order of "most preferred" first to
"least preferred" at the bottom:

1. Provide the long description in the context of the document itself
2. Provide a link to a long description via a normal text link
3. Provide a link to a long description via the longdesc attribute
4. Provide a link to a long description via a "d" link

Those who are familiar with accessibility techniques may be surprised to
find that the longdesc attribute and "d" link are at the bottom of the
list. The reason for this is that both methods are rather obscure. The
longdesc attribute is invisible (and inaccessible in some browsers) to
people who are not using screen readers. The "d" link is
non-conventional, and can be confusing to people who are not familiar
with their purpose. The most straightforward way of making long
descriptions accessible is to make them obvious and available to
everyone, whether or they have a disability or not.

</quote>

--
Paul Ryan Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, ED COHEN wrote:
>
>
>>Our question is how long, if at all, should we plan to use the "d" for
>>complex graphics, since newer screen readers do support the "longdesc"
>>tag?
>
>
> You should use neither. Neither of them is required by 508 rules, and
> neither of them is useful for actual accessibility.
> ...



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