#shortdescriptions and #descriptions

[David Austin]

Hi everyone:

A number of us are engaged in writing #descriptions for #images in our books, and Mitch and I have had some correspondence on this topic.  If there is a #description but no #shortdescription, PreTeXt adds the default “described in detail following the image" as img/@alt.  

-- What is the best practice for authors?  Should we only write #descriptions and use this default for img/@at or would it be preferable to write both #description and #shortdescription?

-- Mitch has noticed that when #description is present but not #shortdescription the resulting #img has @aria-describedby added.  But that attribute is not added when both are present.  Is this correct or should the attribute be added in both situations?

Thanks,

David

[Rob Beezer]

I am very interested in seeing some discussion here. While revieweing this PR
from Mitch, I noticed some opportunities for a refactor/consolidation, once we
are certain about the "right" thing to do.

https://github.com/PreTeXtBook/pretext/pull/2732

Rob

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[Michael Cantino]

Here's the W3C guidance on long descriptions. 

I like the consistency of using the same alt description to point the reader to the long description, but I could also make the argument that a custom alt description could let the reader decide whether or not they need to investigate an image further via the long description link. 

Michael Cantino

 

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[Mitch Keller]

One practice I’m leaning toward is trying to write the long description so that the first sentence gives the reader enough information to know if they want to continue with the long description or to jump on to the next thing. 

Maybe a relevant question is how does a screenreader user interact with an image that has both alt-text (coming from a PreTeXt short description) and a long description? If the short description doesn’t mention the long description, do they only know there’s a long description is there’s an @aria-describedby attribute? That may be relevant to @Sean’s work with descriptions for asymptote, as I don’t believe they currently are getting the @aria-describedby attribute.

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-- 
Mitch Keller
mi...@rellek.net

http://www.rellek.net/

[Michael Cantino]

Happy new year! 

I think trying to provide a succinct description at the beginning of a long description makes sense, Mitch. I've been working on lots of state testing materials, and I was thinking about the standardized long descriptions being used there that are a bit of a slog. For example, graphs all start with a basic description like "a graph with an x axis ranging from -8 to 8 in intervals of 2 and a y axis ranging from -8 to 8 in intervals of two". You don't really get to the key bits of information very quickly.

I'm imagining that there will be many images that are difficult to describe succinctly, so providing a brief description at the top of a long description may prove challenging in some cases.

Can you point me to an example with an alt text description and an aria-describedby long description? I'd imagine that the reader would still come across the aria description as they navigate through the page. I don't think they would need to go out of their way to look for it. I'm pretty sure that's the case. I'm pretty sure the screen reader won't announce the word "ARIA" when it comes across an ARIA label, so I think I'm typically coming across ARIA things and not realizing that they're ARIA. Am I making sense?

Michael