[html4all] Another summary of alt="" issues and why the spec says what it says
Joshue O Connor
joshue.oconnor at cfit.ie
Fri Apr 18 01:34:57 PDT 2008
Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Apr 2008, Jim Jewett wrote:
>>> Wouldn't that require that the image be described somewhere? The whole
>>> point here is that we don't know what the image is.
>> Yes -- but the description, like alt text in practice, need not be
>> perfect.
>>
>> There are plenty of reasons that "good enough" alt text may not be
>> available, but no one has come up with an example where *nothing* was
>> known about the image. You just posted your four main examples, and
>> there was indeed information. Not as much as we would like, but quite a
>> bit more than nothing.
>>
>> You then said that information wasn't suitable for alt text, because it
>> should be in a visible element instead -- which it could be, if
>> aria-describedby were used to link the two elements.
>
> I guess, though I don't really understand what practical benefit there is
> to linking the description to the image using aria-describedby.
I have read the rest of the posts in this thread and I also can't see
what benefit there would be in using aria-describedby in this case.
Unless I am missing something, the use of @alt to provide alternate text
is pretty much the same thing, the same kind of programmatic association.
Cheers
Josh
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