Short comments on long desk
Monday, 23 August 2010
@longdesc should not be removed from HTML5 until a real alternative has been provided. aria-describedby does not fully replace @longdesc because it does not support URLs, as many others have pointed out. Wrapping an image in an anchor that links to a long description is not fully satisfactory either because that technique is a cowpath (that sacred cow of HTML5!) to other things, such as an enlarged version of a thumbnail, or a normal link where the link text happens to be the content of img/@alt. The content at the target of img/@longdesc is much more similar to the content of table/@summary than to any content for sighted users. With regard to support, John Foliot pointed out on CSSquirrel that @longdesc is supported by JAWs, WindowEyes, SuperNova/Hal and other AT, has been available in Firefox since version 1.5 (admittedly with poor UI) and is supported by Opera. Rejecting the inclusion of @longdesc in HTML5 forces the accessibility community to find workarounds for browser and AT failures. When claiming that "The main effect of using longdesc at the current time is you will block people from being able to access the content, including some, possibly most, AT users," one should prove that aria-describedby is at least as good (browser UI and AT support) and that web developers would prefer inserting the long description inside the same page. I bet that web developers will want more choice (Kyle Weems apparently does) and that they won't like circuitous workarounds such as the one suggested by Jonas Sicking today. Also, isn't it ironic that some people prefer aria-describedby over @longdesc when- the "invisibility" of the attribute is used as an argument against @longdesc but not against aria-describedby (or other WAI-ARIA stuff),
- WAI-ARIA is a bridging solution and recommends native solutions - which would include @longdesc - if they are available?
This is a comment on "Longdesc is dead! Long live Longdesc!"