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AboutLongdesc – Another look
- August 12 2008
3 comments –
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After 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 title attribute on images. Before getting knee deep in code, I decided to find out if the idea was valid by W3 standards.
Unlike the TITLE element, which provides information about an entire document and may only appear once, the title attribute may annotate any number of elements.
Values of the title attribute may be rendered by user agents in a variety of ways. For instance, visual browsers frequently display the title as a “tool tip” (a short message that appears when the pointing device pauses over an object). Audio user agents may speak the title information in a similar context.
W3.org
Good enough for me. So here, using a similar example to what I did yesterday, I passed the long description into the image title attribute and when the user mouseovers the image, a div will popup with extra information. Obviously, the browser given title popup might be enough, but sometimes it might be hard to read long blocks of text, so I suppressed the title on mousever and popped a div instead.
Yes, me again. Dropped in to see what you were up to now.
I can think I follow what you have done here. However, and you can correct me if I am wrong, by using the “title” property and NOT using the longdesc – will a screen reader pick up on it being there?
I was under the impression (potentially wrongly..) that the screen reader picks up on the “longdesc” tag and offers the “viewer” the option of having the caption read to them.
So, would the “description” appearing as part of a title tag cause:
The screen reader to read the text outside of context/flow?
Would the “viewer” have the content read to them regardless – not have the option of skipping by.
By omitting the longdesc altogether, is that classed as accessible?
It sure is all confusing for me.
Your first example does pass the WAVE or Cynthia test – BUT the second one does not – it is flagged for not having a longdesc….
This leads me to conclude, that what is acceptable by W3c, does not necessarily work for accessibility.
Must say, I am on a learning curve here… quite enjoying the trip. Just wondering what else you have up your sleeve.
Ruth,
You’re correct in your assumption – what’s accepted by W3C does not necessarily work for accessibility.
Title attributes on form elements might be read by screen readers, but title attributes on images might be ignored. Some screen readers actually have settings where users can select if title attributes on certain HTML elements are read, but then again, how many people actually change factory settings?
Ah, the old, left hand not quite working in conjunction with the right (W3C v Accessibility) – wonderful.
As for changing factory settings, well, you got me there, no idea, I always like to look under the hood…probably why I get into trouble a lot.
This might interest you – back to the notion of “footnotes” – in view ones this time, not hidden and with JQuery. Have a look at this.
http://www.cssnewbie.com/generating-automatic-website-footnotes-with-jquery/
I’ll keep checking back.