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Subject: Accessibility SC Proposal for alternative text



What follows is the latest version of the accessibility subcommittee's proposal for extending alternative text support.  We think this is pretty much our final word on this subject, but will discuss it one final time at our face to face meeting May 20-21.  Meanwhile, however, we wanted the whole TC to see what we're proposing.

Note in particular that in section 3.0 there is an explicit reference to what Microsoft Office does.  The TC should decide if it wants that language in the standard.

Please send any comments to office-accessibility@lists.oasis-open.org.  Thanks.  -- Nathaniel

======================================

Executive Summary of proposed changes addressing alternative text for non-
text elements and hypertext links:

An accessibility gap in the ODF specification is alternative text support
for non-text objects. Additionally, the specification does not allow for
"hint" text for hypertext links. These are also a key accessbility
requirement in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In order to
address this, the subteam has decided we need provisioning for alternative
text and long descriptions for these types of ODF elements. We had
considered the use of draw:name and office:name (hyperlink) properties for
alternative text however feedback from some TC members indicated that this
already had "legitimate uses and its reuse was inappropriate."

Subsequently, the subteam recommends the use of the <svg:title> element,
from SVG, for alternative text and
the <svg:desc> element, from SVG for the long description. We have also
decided that ODF captions do not follow standard XML in that the captioning <text:p>
does not show a normative relationship, in the specification, to the
drawing object being captioned. As a result we will be introducing a new
draw:describedBy attribute to apply to objects being captioned.

Furthermore, we will be asking that the appropriate text be added to the
ODF specification to indicate how this accessibility meta data is mapped
by the authoring tool to platform accessibility API as well as their
accessibility applicability in the specification.

Requirements:

1.0 image-map elements
The <svg:title> element must be provided as an optional element to the following:

draw:area-rectangle
draw:area-circle
draw:area-polygon

Text should be added to these elements as follows:

<svg:title> is used as a short accessible name. When transcoding from
another document format to ODF the short names, like HTML's alt text on
the <img> tags shall shall be mapped to the <svg:title> element.
Alternative in Microsoft Office is considered a short name and should be
mapped accordingly.

<svg:desc> Is used for the long description in support of accessibility.

2.0 Drawing layer

The <svg:desc> element must be provided as an optional element to the <draw:layer>
. This element must apply to all ODF document formats for which <draw:
layer> is used.

Text should be added as follows:

<svg:title> is used as a short accessible name. When transcoding from
another document format to ODF the short names, like HTML's alt text on
the <img> tags shall shall be mapped to the <svg:title> element.
Alternative in Microsoft Office is considered a short name and should be
mapped accordingly.

<svg:desc> Is used for the long description in support of accessibility.

3.0 Drawing shapes (line 5926 of spec.)

The <svg:title> and <svg:desc> elements must be provided as an optional
element to all drawing shape elements defined below for all ODF document
formats for which these drawing shapes are used.

The following are the drawing shape elements:

<draw-rect>
<draw:line>
<draw:polyline>
<draw:polygon>
<draw:regular-polygon>
<draw:path>
<draw:circle>
<draw:ellipse>
<draw:g>
<draw:page-thumbnail>
<draw:frame>
<draw:measure>
<draw:caption>
<draw:connector>
<draw:control>
<dr3d:scene>
<draw-custom-shape>

Text should be added to these elements as follows:

<svg:title> is used as a short accessible name. When transcoding from
another document format to ODF the short names, like HTML's alt text on
the <img> tags shall shall be mapped to the <svg:title> element.
Alternative in Microsoft Office is considered a short name and should be
mapped accordingly.


<svg:desc> Is used for the long description in support of accessibility.

User agents supporting platform accessibility APIs should follow the
following conventions for supporting the accessible name, accessible
description (accessible help on Windows systems), and describedBy relationships:
If an <svg:title> element is provided it should map to the accessible
name. If not, the name should use the text referenced the text element
identified by the draw:describedby attribute. <svg:desc> must be used to
support the accessible description. User agents shall not manufacture names for the
<svg:title> element, such as using the drawing object followed by a
cardinal number in a string as it is used for accessibility. Name
assignments such as these provide no semantic meaning to the user.

Guidance for authors:
Authors should not assign names to objects having no semantic value. If no
name is assigned the caption text will be used in its place. <svg:title>
shall take precedence over the caption text for accessible name assignment
by the user agent.

Assignment of the long description should only be necessary when a drawing
object is significantly complex and the user needs more information to
describe it. Long descriptions would be more applicable to drawing
groupings than basic drawing shapes.

Authoring tool responsibility for presenting and prompting for the <svg:title> and
<svg:desc>:

Authoring tools should provide an option from an objects context menu to
allow the user to enter the text for either of these elements as a
minimum. More proactive authoring tools should have a facility for
prompting the author for this text. Since <svg:desc> is a long
escription, a text area vs. a text field should be used to prompt the
user accordingly in GUI-based authoring tools like Workplace and Open Office.

Navigation tools, such as in Workplace and Open Office, used to list the
objects in the view should provide
the type of object followed by the contents of <svg:title>. The title must
have been entered by the author.

For <draw:g> elements the drawing objects who are members of the group
should visible only when the group is expanded.



4.0 Establish clear relationship between a drawing objects and its caption
by including a new optional draw:describedby attribute to the following
drawing objects:

<draw-rect>
<draw:line>
<draw:polyline>
<draw:polygon>
<draw:regular-polygon>
<draw:path>
<draw:circle>
<draw:ellipse>
<draw:g>
<draw:page-thumbnail>
<draw:measure>
<draw:caption>
<draw:connector>
<draw:control>
<dr3d:scene>
<draw-custom-shape>
<dr3d:scene>
<draw:frame>

draw:describedby shall take a value of IDREF. The value for describedBy
attribute shall be the target id assigned to the <text:p> used to
represent the corresponding caption. As text:p is an XML element it may
have an ID assigned by default. The following attribute list should be
included as optional to the above drawing objects:

<define name="common-draw-describedby-attlist" combine="interleave">
<attribute name="draw:desribedby">
<ref name="IDREF"/>
</attribute>
</define>

When a caption is assigned by a user agent, an id must be assigned to the
element containing the text used to caption a drawing element. The drawing
element being captioned must then be assigned the draw:describedby
attribute with an IDEF equivalent to the id of the captioning text thus
establishing a relationship between the captioned text and the object
captioned as needed for accessibility. Removing the caption should result
in removing the describedBy attribute of the object that was being captioned.

If the user agent supports a platform which provides a describedby
relationship in its accessibility API, this relationship for captions
should be used to fulfill the relationship.

5.0 Establish text hints for hypertext links

The <svg:title> element must be provided as an optional element to <text:a>

<svg:title> is used as a short accessible description for hint text. When
transcoding from another document format to ODF the alt text, shall be
mapped to the <svg:title> element. When exporting ODF documents to HTML,
the contents of title text should be mapped to title attribute text on
HTML anchor tags. As a minimum, authoring tools should provide a mechanism
to provide the hint text.

The title text should be made accessible to the assistive technology and
user. The user agent should allow for programmatic access through standard
accessibility APIs such as the accessible description. User should
experience visible access to the hint text via the keyboard or mouse.


Appendix:  Proposed schema for svg-title


<define name="svg-title">
     <element name="svg:title">
         <text/>
     </element>
</define>

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