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Bug 9678 - add rationale for providing an alt when inline description is available
Summary: add rationale for providing an alt when inline description is available
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: pre-LC1 alt techniques (editor: Steven Faulkner) (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Windows NT
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: steve faulkner
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL: http://dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/
Whiteboard:
Keywords: a11y, a11y_text-alt
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-05-07 09:27 UTC by steve faulkner
Modified: 2010-10-05 12:53 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Description steve faulkner 2010-05-07 09:27:05 UTC
anne wrote:
Admittedly I only skimmed through the document for a few minutes, so maybe I missed the answer, but it seems that in Example 2.3 it is not explained what the advantage of including an alternative text in the first place is. If there is a full description it seems one could just use alt="".
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010May/0116.html

i replied:

The description is an alternative interpretation of the flowchart. if
alt="" was used the image would be removed from the accessibility tree
for AT users, which is incorrect, the image is not meaningless, it
contains information which a range of users could interpret with the
aid of the short text alternative and longer description.

The alt in this case provides an accessible name for the image that
identifies the image for users AT users. It also provides a text
alternative for users who have images turned off in their browsers, so
they can if they wish load and view the image. If alt="" was used
there would be no indication that an image was there.
Comment 1 steve faulkner 2010-08-16 12:08:35 UTC
EDITOR'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: accepted

Change Description: rationale added to spec

Rationale: 

An image contains relevant information, an alternative interpretation of which is available in the same document as structured text. Using an empy alt attribute hides an image from some users, which is incorrect, the image is not meaningless, it contains information which a range of users could interpret with the aid of the short text alternative and longer description. It also provides a text alternative for users who have images turned off in their browsers, so they can if they wish load and view the image. If an empty alt attribibute is present there may be no indication that an image is present. Also if a description of an image is provided in a document, a programmatic association between the image and the descriptive text is required, using an empty alt attribute on the image effectively precludes the assigning of a programmatic association.
Comment 2 Michael Cooper 2010-09-02 13:42:55 UTC
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.