[html4all] Omitting alt Attribute for Critical Content Wiki page

[Gez Lemon]

Hi Harry,

On 23/10/2007, Harry Loots <harry.loots at ieee.org> wrote:
> The current listed "Solutions" i believe should be:
>
> 1. User enters attribute "_none" (alt="_none"). This entered value signifies a
> conscious decision by the author that the associated image's alt attribute
> should be empty.
>
> 2. Authoring tool (CMS) enters value "_omit" (or other) to signify that the
> content editor has omitted alt attribute. This is the equivalent generated
> value to hand-coded _none. (By providing this ability we make a clear
> distinction between user entered and Authoring Tool generated.).
>
> 3. Authoring tool (CMS) enters value "_ignored". This generated value
> signifies that content editor ignored the alt attribute.

>From a markup perspective, it would be strange for a data type to be
%Text with a few exceptions ("_none", "_omit", "_ignored", or any
other predefined value). It's possible that the data type could be
%Text with notes about predefined values for conformance, but that
still results in name space pollution; if an author wanted to use
"_none", or any other of the proposed values, they wouldn't be able
to, as those values would have a predefined meaning. As unlikely as
that scenario might be, it's not unthinkable that someone might want
to specify alternate text of "_none", and I think an author should be
able to do so. I don't agree that it's acceptable to reserve special
meanings to certain phrases when mixed with %Text.

Personally, I see this whole issue in terms of areas of
responsibility. A markup language simply needs to make it possible to
specify alternate text for non-text objects, and the definition of the
alt attribute in HTML 4.01 does exactly that. It's the content
author's responsibility to provide alternate text, and authoring tools
should make it easy for content authors to provide alternate text.
Relaxing the rules about whether or not alternate text is required (no
matter how it's dressed up) doesn't help accessibility - it's
ultimately just a get-out clause for poor content-management systems
and/or lazy content authors. A markup language should require
alternate text for non-text objects; authoring tools should make it
easy to provide alternate text for non-text objects, and content
authors should be educated to want to provide alternate text for
non-text objects. "Too much time for too little benefit" just isn't
acceptable. Entertaining the notion that alternate text is too
difficult to provide for too little benefit isn't really helping
anyone, other than poor authoring tools and/or lazy content authors.


Best regards,


Gez




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