[html4all] Investigating the proposed alt attribute recommendations in HTML 5

[Robert Burns]

Hi Steve,

I took a look at the page you're putting together and i think its a  
good demonstration[1]. I really think the way their wording this is  
beyond bizarre.  For example when Lachlan says[2]: "where no alt text  
has been provided and is virtually impossible to acquire.". I have no  
idea what that even means. Where would one "acquire" alt text. Like  
all of the text in the document its authored by the author. The same  
author that elects to add a photo to a web page can also elect to add  
the alt text for that photo. They seem to want to facilitate the  
publishing of every photo someone shoots to the point that even the  
photo's of the lens cap will be on the web. My impression of the  
photos authors publish on the web is that they are the photos they  
have taken care to order into groups or photo albums. Often times,  
they're the photos that the author has cropped, sometime even color  
or brightness corrected. Adding text description could just be a  
normal part of that process: a normal part of the process that would  
benefit disabled users and users of search engines too.

Having said all that. I think you might want to stress some more on  
you page  that in the use case they're addressing —  where photo  
library software is involved —  that  photo library software usually  
takes control of the filenames and makes them deliberately machine  
readable and much less human readable.

As an editorial suggestion, I'd also say you should use the word  
filename instead of title. Title is ambiguous because it could refer  
to the metadata title of the photo (a good place to store and extract  
alt text in this use case); the title attribute for an element; or  
the filename as you're using it.

Take care,
Rob

[1]: <http://www.wat-c.org/HTMLWG/>
[2]: <http://blog.whatwg.org/omit-alt>

> I have started writing up the results of some testing i have done  
> to test
> the recommendations in regards to the omitting of the alt attribute
> http://www.wat-c.org/HTMLWG/
>
> feedback welcome
>
> note: the second mp3 file does not work yet.
> -- 
> with regards
>
> Steve Faulkner
> Technical Director - TPG Europe
> Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium