Re: [office-accessibility] alt text discussion

["Dave Pawson" <dave.pawson@gmail.com>]

On 07/04/06, Chieko Asakawa <CHIE@jp.ibm.com> wrote:

dp. I'm guessing that you are describing what you want to happen
when a drawing is converted (exported) to html?
Do you mean from the draw program, from the presentation program
or from writer? Or from all 3?


> I want to add some comments for the alternative text discussion.
> We want to propose that an HTML conversion method should be described for
> shapes(rectangles, etc) without "draw:name", if "draw:name should be
> optional".
> Screen reader users will not need to have meaningless alt texts, however,
dp. I think Peter's proposal (that we all accepted) addresses this problem.



> alt texts are required to be compliant with Section 508 and WCAG.

dp. Yes, but users do not always provide them, even for publication
in the USA, where 508 applies.


> It seems that MS Office provides ways to insert alt texts for any shapes,
> since a generated HTML documents from office documents should be compliant
> with 508.
dp. 'should' is the key word? We are relying on users to provide names and
descriptions of shapes.




>
> So we should describe that alt text should be inserted for a shape without
> "draw:name", "svg:desc", and a caption, as Null text when an ODF is
> converted to HTML format.
dp. name and description are the 'holders' for the source of alt text.
That is all.




> In this way, an ODF editor can generate accessible HTML document.
> If you agree, then we need to find where we should describe such guideline.

dp. I do agree that user guidelines will help, and should indicate
why alt text is required.


regards



--
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk