WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Investigating the proposed alt attributerecommendations in HTML 5

for

From: Steven Faulkner
Date: Aug 30, 2007 10:10AM

Hi Andrew,

>Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation, but HTML5 is not removing the
>alt attribute, just not making it required.

No you are not misunderstanding the situation. What I am arguing is
reasoning given for that the change of the alt attribute to optional and
recommending its omission (as it does in the spec) is not based on any sound
evidence and if a little research and testing it is done it is found that
(for screen reader users for example) it has the potential to have an
adverse effect upon accessibility. Therefore why not leave the alt as
required?

Some "real world" use cases need to be provided where the omission of the
alt is beneficial, as yet they have not been.


On 30/08/2007, Andrew Kirkpatrick < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation, but HTML5 is not removing the
> alt attribute, just not making it required. For linked images, omitting
> the alt attribute and not having a good value would still be an
> accessiblity issue, and it would be valid and expected to add alt="Boba
> and Franny's Baby Cat Sleeping". I think that your page highlights why
> it is necessary to use the alt attribute on images, but it doesn't
> address what the downside of not requiring the alt attribute for all
> images.
>
> I feel like this change is being received as a stab in the back to all
> the good work in accessibility that has taken place over the years, but
> I don't think that is the case....
>
> AWK
>
>
> >