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In bug 10488, I mention the role of <figure>. But strikes me that the ALT-techniques draft does not mention @role and roles a single time. This bug is meant to track that the alt-techniques document gives due guidance about how roles and use of @role impacts simplifies (I hope) the useful text alternative authoring.
Concrete issues- Example 9.1: --------- Example code 1: <figure> <img src="1100670787_6a7c664aef.jpg" alt="Lola the cat sitting under an umbrella in the bath tub."> <figcaption>Lola prefers a bath to a shower.</figcaption> </figure> --------- <figure> defaults to "no-role". So what is it that <figcaption> is captioning in those examples? It would make sense to use <figure role="img">. The same goes for Example 9.2. Example 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3 seem problematic I quote the code of 10.1: ---- <figure> <img src="webcam1.jpg" alt="Sopwith house weather cam. Taken on the 21/04/10 at 11:51 and 34 seconds. In the foreground are the safety rails on the flat part of the roof. Nearby there are low rise industrial buildings, beyond are blocks of flats. In the distance there's a church steeple." aria-describedby="s1"> <figcaption id="s1">View from the top of Sopwith house, looking towards north Kingston.</figcaption> <p>This image is updated every hour.</p> <p>View the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/4296?area=Kingston"> latest weather details</a> for Kingston upon Thames.</p> </figure> ----- Comment: There is a programmatic link between <img> and an <figcaption>. The @alt must be considered a kind of caption here. Whereas <figcaption>, and <figcaption> alone (not the following <p> elements!!) are the long description. THen what do the<p> elements do? What is their relation - to what? This is how I would have done it: === <figure role="img" aria-labelledby="s1" > <img src="webcam1.jpg" alt="Sopwith house weather cam. Taken on the 21/04/10 at 11:51 and 34 seconds. In the foreground are the safety rails on the flat part of the roof. Nearby there are low rise industrial buildings, beyond are blocks of flats. In the distance there's a church steeple." > <figcaption id="s1">View from the top of Sopwith house, looking towards north Kingston.</figcaption> <p>This image is updated every hour.</p> <p>View the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/4296?area=Kingston"> latest weather details</a> for Kingston upon Thames.</p> </figure> === The advantages to this approach are a) the entire <figure> is considered an "img" in accordance with ARIA 1.0 ("An img can contain captions and descriptive text, as well as multiple image files that when viewed together give the impression of a single image.") Perhaps another role is possible. However, if that is the case, then why have <figcaption> been linked to the <img> element? If the <figure> does not have role="img", then it is a little bit odd to draw a strong link between <img> and <figcaption>. b) <figcaption> is a caption of the entire figure as it should be and as it is meant to be. This also makes it a caption of the <img> element. If you want to emphasize that <figcaptoin> is the caption of the <figure>; then you should use aria-labelledby the way I used it above. If the intent is to have a caption _just_ for the <img>, then it would make sense to either use another element as caption. Or to nest a <figure>, containing only the <img> and its caption, inside the outer figure element.
Bug triage sub-team notes the task force has an interest in this but does not need to prioritize its work on these. Steve and the reporters can follow the usual process on these.
DITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: <http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html>. Status: partially accepted Change Description: will add examples of role use to spec. Rationale: agree that examples of role use would be beneficial to understanding their for the provision of text alternatives