[html4all] alt Flickr and iPhoto/dot Mac

[Robert J Burns]

On this issue of iPhoto/dot Mac, I think one place I can see for  
improvement is in dropping the filename extension from the title of  
the photo. In other words, iPhoto automatically provides the filenames  
of IMG_###.JPG and also includes that same filename in the title of  
the photo in the files metadata. Unfortunately iPhoto also moves the  
filename extension (.jpg) to the photographs title property, which I  
think is unnecessary and unwanted.

In this way the title of each photo (or the alt value if the titles as  
captions are omitted from the document) would become less cumbersome  
to listen to. Obviously as I change the titles to more human readable  
titles I'm not going to maintain the .jpg in the title, so why should  
iPhoto automatically transfer that filename extension to the title  
property.

iPhoto also allows me to provide long descriptions of the photo, but  
there is no way to have iPhoto move those long descriptions to the web  
gallery appropriately referenced with a longdesc attribute.

Take care,
Rob

On May 10, 2008, at 12:45 PM, Robert J Burns wrote:

> Hello 4all,
>
> I'm interested in the hearing the views of this group on the topic I  
> recently raised of the age-old Flickr example. I switched it from  
> Flickr to iPhoto/dot Mac because that is what I am familiar with,  
> and Smylers acknowledged on the WG list that it is substantially the  
> same example.
>
> The thread starts here[1], but my point was essentially that the  
> Flickr example doesn't hold water. In light of the newly drafted IMG  
> section I wonder if the drafters and others could comment on this  
> concrete example. Essentially I argue that the iPhoto/ dot Mac  
> authoring faces no such dilemma, as so often argued. Instead, the  
> implementors of the iPhoto/dot Mac authoring tool have all the  
> information they require to produce a conforming and accessible web  
> page using the titles either generated by the application or titles  
> further improved and made more human readable by the authors  
> themselves. Either way it should be simple to produce an HTML5 web  
> document — and web application in this case — that is accessible,  
> conforming and automating the bulk upload of photos.
>
> So my curiosity relates to two things:
>
> 1) if we apply the tenets of the newly re-drafted image element and  
> the related alt best practices to this iPhoto/dot Mac example does  
> it overcome the often cited Flickr objections.
> 2) I'd like to hear from assistive technology users what the current  
> situation is in using this photo gallery[2]. My sense is that Apple  
> has gone way too far with javascript and — aside from the other  
> frustrations and degraded user experience that creates — I'm  
> concerned that it may also be thoroughly inaccessible (leaving aside  
> the issue of human-unfriendly image titles like IMG_1234.JPG). So if  
> others could check how JAWS and VoiceOver, etc. does with this site,  
> I'd be interested in hearing the results.
>
> Just to clarify the titles of the images could be improved (by me in  
> a manual and potentially cumbersome process). However, my
> interest is in assessing the overall accessibility of the  
> application/documents when relying only on the bulk processing of  
> the photos. My sense is that this example shows that requiring  
> appropriate alt values places no insurmountable burden on the  
> implementors of such bulk automated authoring tools nor necessarily  
> on the authors using those tools (where I'm free to add meaningful  
> titles to as many of the photos as I'd like with each one improving  
> the accessibility and overall usability of my photo galleries).
>
> Take care,
> Rob
>
>
> [1]: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008May/0034.html 
> > with a few replies in May
>       <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008May/thread.html 
> >
> [2]: <http://gallery.mac.com/robburns1#gallery>
> _______________________________________________
> List_HTML4all.org mailing list
> https://www.html4all.org/wiki

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wilbur.bytowninternet.com/pipermail/list_html4all.org/attachments/20080510/a1e2a638/attachment.html