Re: "image analysis heuristics" (ISSUE-66)

On Feb 6, 2010, at 5:02 AM, Ian Hickson wrote:
>> 2. Does not list specific techniques.
> 
> I think we do a disservice to users by not mentioning explicit techniques.

I think we do a disservice to users by mentioning explicit techniques that have widely been seen to be inferior to existing guidance, or even to specifying nothing at all.

>> 3. Informatively references the techiques described in UAAG (either 1.0
>>   or the 2.0 draft)
> 
> We already have a reference to UAAG in the "Recommended reading" section. 
> I don't think we should have fine-grained cross-references throughout the 
> spec, because that way lies a maintenance nightmare, and it's not actually 
> that useful (UA implementors should read the whole UAAG).

That's also precisely why a reference to the spec itself, and not a rewritten or self-generated example in WHATWG style, is what is called for here. There is no one sentence you can put here that is functionally equivalent to reading UAAG.

>> 5. Does not imply the use of futuristic technologies.
> 
> Image recogition is not a futuristic technology, and nor is OCR.

It is also, as explained in the original change request, completely inadequate and not worth the space used to specify it. Particularly since it's only a MAY anyway. You could just as easily say that UAs may use haptic displays to render images for people who can't see them: it's technology that exists, and may help some people, some of the time, sometime in the future. But it's not practical now, it's not broadly applicable across HTML content, and making reference to it in the document will only confuse implementers into believing that it is.

-
m

Received on Monday, 8 February 2010 22:13:50 UTC