[whatwg] Alt attribute for <video> and <audio>

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 9:22 AM, David Singer<singer at apple.com> wrote:
> At 1:12  +0200 10/08/09, Remco wrote:
>>
>> Shouldn't <video>s and <audio>s (and maybe <object>s too?) also have
>> an alt attribute? A quick Google search tells me this has not been
>> discussed before.
>
> Your search was too quick...we are discussing accessibility provisions for
> video and audio in general.  Have a look under that.
>
> I think alt has been shown to have problems as well as provisions...perhaps
> we can find a better way?

Dave,

I'd be curious to hear what those problems and provisions are for
<video> and <audio>.

Even though I'm a strong supporter of solving the
subtitles/captions/i18n/sign language/audio annotation  a11y issues of
<video> and <audio>, I still believe that "alt" may have a use similar
to what it is used for with images.

E.g. when you tab onto a <video> element, the "alt" tag could give a
very brief summary as to what the video is about, e.g. "Elephant
Dreams video". It would be much shorter and not time-aligned. But I am
curious in people's opinions about this.

Cheers,
Silvia.