[html4all] some reflections on @alt usage
Charles McCathieNevile
chaals at opera.com
Mon Apr 28 06:00:00 PDT 2008
On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:00:58 +0200, Laura Carlson
<laura.lee.carlson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Optional alt is a way to codify and bless bad tools.
I don't think so.
There is a lot of nonsense that Ian had in drafta about when you can omit
alt - circumstances where it is necesary and he is just wrng. There are
other badly constructed examples (his use of HTML5 markup with figure and
legend should have alt="" since the content is already there, not omit the
alt). All of the stupid advice about times when alt can be ommitted needs
to be rewritten.
There are arguments given in the debate that are about blessing bad tools,
an those specific arguments should be shot down in flames.
The spec should point out that not having alt is wrong. But having some
default value that is meaningless, or that collides with a meaningful
value like alt="" is even more wrong since it not only breaks the user
experience like no alt does, but it also becomes harder to test and breaks
existing rules, advice, and tools.
If we get these issues fixed in the spec then we are ready to start
addressing the actual question of whether missing alt should be a
validation error.
Optional alt is about a belief that validation is more important to people
(in particular tool developers) than accessibility. If that turns out to
be true, then it makes sense. If that turns out to be false, then it
doesn't. But we have to have some research - both sides of the argument
are currently based on gut feeling and instinct. There is a real issue
here, and there is very little real information being provided to settle
the question rationally.
So my preferred approach is to fix the rest of the rubbish in the spec,
and do some research on the real issue, and *then* talk about making a
decision...
cheers
Chaals
--
Charles McCathieNevile Opera Software, Standards Group
je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
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