[oslc-core] Need to add alt/title property to the Compact UI Preview specifcation
Bill Andreas
Bill_Andreas at notesdev.ibm.com
Wed Feb 15 16:16:32 EST 2012
The current specification of an OSLC Compact UI Preview defines an icon as
part of the specification but does not provide a means to provide any
accessibility information about that icon. As a consequence, when the
compact preview information is displayed, the visualization is not
accessible (fails to provide an alternative explanation of an image).
The nub of the issue here is that the compact UI Preview defines an icon
as simply a resource (a reference to an image file) but it does not allow
information about that icon to be provided that is needed for to render
"accessible" HTML markup.
Property
Value-type
Occurs
Description
oslc:icon
Resource
zero-or-one
URI of an image which may be used in the display of a link to the
resource. The image SHOULD be 16x16 pixels in size.
When the UI renders the icon, we'll display something like:
<img class="iconNode" dojoattachpoint="iconNode" src="
https://rqmx64a.rtp.raleigh.ibm.com:9443/qm/web/com.ibm.asq.common.web/ui/internal/images/icons/obj16/qm_testcase16.gif
">
The accessibility issue is that there is no title or alt property
associated with the image. The icon conveys information (it's commonly a
visual representation of the "type" of the thing being previewed). Since
the icon conveys information accessibility standards require that the alt
or title (or both) properties be set on the img tag with a meaningful
string assigned to them.
None of the values currently in the compact rendering specification are
suitable for use as the alt/title text for the icon. (So we leave
alt/title unvalued and accessibility checking software immediately flags
the rendered icon as failing accessibility).
There are a couple of ways this could be solved. One mechanism used in
some other standards is to simply allow the title/alt text (and
potentially other HTML attributes) to be specified as arguments on the URI
used to specify the image, e.g., "foobar.com/fancy_icon.gif?title=Fancy
Pants Icon". The other mechanism would be to add an attribute to the
specification "Icon-alt-text" or some such thing.
In most uses, a single string is used as both the alt and title property
of an img tag (the two properties serve a very similar purpose), so only
one value is needed. There are odd cases where someone might really want
the alt text to be lengthier then the title text (the title text is
displayed in a tooltip, the alt text is handed to screen readers and
displayed if the icon doesn't load).
The need for specifying the alt/title text for the icon is rather
pressing. Longer term, there may be a need to allow other kinds of HTML
properties to be specified (which is why some standards just throw these
properties, as needed, onto the URI instead of making them separate
attributes). For example, there is talk that both the lang and dir
attributes may need to be set on icons (some globalization people have
been clamoring for this). So in deciding how to best handle alt/title
text, we may want to think about possible (similar) future needs,.
-- Bill Andreas
Senior Designer
Rational Software
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