WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: LONGDESC in HTML5?

for

From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Sep 25, 2010 5:33PM

John wrote:
--- start ---
Note, I don't necessarily agree with the current alt text on these pages, but please Vlad, apply your rule to this page's images:
http://www.happywebbies.com/
--- end ---

I would not change the alt text for each image, instead I would change the images. I would put the name of each person in the image and I would put the purpose of the site/page at the top. This is a usability issue. As a sighted user I have no idea what this site does nor who those people are. John, if you are going to provide an example, please provide a best practice example that invalidates the rule I am proposing. Unless you are suggesting specifications and derivative works should teach users to write appropriate alt text for badly constructed Web pages.

Regarding this photo site:
http://www.zinkwazi.com/scripts/demo/phpslideshow.php?directory=photos

Photos on photo sharing sites should have blank alt text. Instead, there should be a caption or label that is accessible to all visitors. Please see this:
http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/no-alt-text-for-photo-sharing-sites/

John wrote: "Please name one web-based 'machine' that only processes text, and does not process hyperlinks at the same time."

Do you mean strip out the hyperlink when processing the content for a given purpose or when presenting that content to a user? Google does that. For example, here is one search result for search on longdesc:

--- start ---
22 Aug 2010 ... How do we save longdesc ? The longdesc attribute, although potentially useful, was removed from the HTML5 specification, ...
--- end ---

In the above, Google striped out the hyperlink around the text "How do we save longdesc ?"

Take care,
-Vlad