This is an archived snapshot of W3C's public bugzilla bug tracker, decommissioned in April 2019. Please see the home page for more details.
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #10016 +++ To present an <img> with a longdesc the best way to AT users, what role should this <img> have: <img src=foo alt="Bar. Bas." longdesc="longdesc.html"> Does this make sence - if yes, are there cases when it does not make sense: <img role="link img" src=foo alt="Bar. Bas." longdesc="longdesc.html"> What about a presentational image - this should probably be invalid, since presentational images are ignored by AT users. (I guess @aria-describedby on same imags, should also be invalid?) <img role="presentation" src=foo alt="" longdesc="longdesc.html"> <img src=foo alt="" longdesc="longdesc.html"> Are there other meaningful/unmeaningful roles when @longdesc is used?
<img> should always use the img role by default, regardless if it has @alt, @longdesc, or @title. Re: presentation. I've been considering making whether we should make it an author warning if people use role="presentation" on leaf img nodes (with no rendered subtree like svg). Authors almost always intend something else here, usually @aria-hidden.
There's no special reason why a presentational image cannot have a description. While screenreader users might not look at it - and after all the point of longdesc is that nobody is required to look at it, it is always optional, although the description it points to *may* have been inserted directly into the page content - it can be used by image management tools, search engines and even sighted users. Therefore there is no reason for the longdesc spec to say anything about this either way.