A "negative" use-case!?
Sunday, 22 August 2010
So, here's a "double-negative use case" (in the wild)!
"Double-negative" because longdesc is not being used here — but I would have liked to use it, and its use would have been absolutely appropriate! It's just that weak user-agent support meant that using it would potentially have left the long description actually unavailable to people who might benefit from it. So instead, I decided to compromise (somewhat) the experience of people who already could perceive the graphical image perfectly well, and exposed the long description for all users (even though it is redundant for the majority). This decision then, logically, had the further effect of requiring an explanation — for those majority users — of what a long description is and why — which explanation, in turn, is redundant for those users who would normally actually benefit from a long description!
I humbly suggest that such a convoluted (nay, "traumatic"!) design decision — genuinely existing "in the wild" — should count as legitimate evidence of the use-case-need for longdesc!?