Comments on: Progressive enhancements with “longdesc” http://idhana.com/2008/08/11/progressive-enhancements-with-longdesc/ Making happy users! Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:12:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Longdesc - Another look « idhana.com http://idhana.com/2008/08/11/progressive-enhancements-with-longdesc/comment-page-1/#comment-49 Longdesc - Another look « idhana.com Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:47:27 +0000 http://idhana.com/2008/08/11/progressive-enhancements-with-longdesc/#comment-49 [...] coming up with a quick bit of code yesterday for the longdesc comment that Ruth left, I had another idea. I decided to try approaching the problem using the [...] [...] coming up with a quick bit of code yesterday for the longdesc comment that Ruth left, I had another idea. I decided to try approaching the problem using the [...]

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]]> By: Ruth http://idhana.com/2008/08/11/progressive-enhancements-with-longdesc/comment-page-1/#comment-18 Ruth Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:23:46 +0000 http://idhana.com/2008/08/11/progressive-enhancements-with-longdesc/#comment-18 Neat idea - that is the kind of thing I was suggesting. Following that original posting, I did a heap more research. The whole issue of long description seems to be/has caused something of a "stir" - particularly the execution of the thing. I decided, in the end, to use the notion of hidden footnotes - probably along the lines of your original notion. Back to this example. It passes the WAVE test by the way... so that is neat. However, for real accessibility purposes, you might need to accommodate an "auto" expanding kind of box area. While most images don't in fact need a long description, a basic one would do. Apparently, the whole point of long description is to attempt to describe - as fully as possible - the meaning of an image to an unsighted website visitor. Long description is usually not there on mouse over - as you then assume the ability to use a mouse... apparently, screen readers pick up on the location of long description and that enables the user to access - somehow. Question then would be - how do they "mouse out". Your creation does provide a solution that would resolve one of the main problems of having long descriptions on their own page - that problem being some software actually opens up a whole new window to display them - making the back button redundant and causing concern as to how the viewer gets taken back to the relevant area of the specific page they were on - without having to work through a page again... I have to say, I am damn impressed with your work here, you are pretty rapid at popping this JQuery/javascript stuff out. Neat idea – that is the kind of thing I was suggesting. Following that original posting, I did a heap more research. The whole issue of long description seems to be/has caused something of a “stir” – particularly the execution of the thing.

I decided, in the end, to use the notion of hidden footnotes – probably along the lines of your original notion.

Back to this example.

It passes the WAVE test by the way… so that is neat. However, for real accessibility purposes, you might need to accommodate an “auto” expanding kind of box area.

While most images don’t in fact need a long description, a basic one would do. Apparently, the whole point of long description is to attempt to describe – as fully as possible – the meaning of an image to an unsighted website visitor.

Long description is usually not there on mouse over – as you then assume the ability to use a mouse… apparently, screen readers pick up on the location of long description and that enables the user to access – somehow. Question then would be – how do they “mouse out”.

Your creation does provide a solution that would resolve one of the main problems of having long descriptions on their own page – that problem being some software actually opens up a whole new window to display them – making the back button redundant and causing concern as to how the viewer gets taken back to the relevant area of the specific page they were on – without having to work through a page again…

I have to say, I am damn impressed with your work here, you are pretty rapid at popping this JQuery/javascript stuff out.

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