I would like to see the accessibility improvements discussed in #193887: Accessibility enhancements implemented in FileField Image.

Here's a brief summary:

  1. ALT text (and longdesc below) should be required unless the user ticks a box declaring the image decorative. This is a way to promote good behavior.
  2. ALT text should be limited to 80 characters (for longer descriptions longdesc should be used).
  3. An optional longdesc field. Longdesc is an URL reference to a page that contains a detailed description of the image. This is very rarely used, but it is sometimes appears in accessibility checklists in CMS procurement guidelines so it would be nice to have.

The current way of defaulting the alt text to the file name is a bad idea from an accessibility perspective. If the image is unimportant or decorative and doesn't need a description the alt attribute should be empty. That way a screen reader will skip it and the user won't have to listen to the filename.

Comments

jpetso’s picture

jpetso commented

Yup, valid requests probably. There are currently a few hurdles to overcome still until additional fields like custom title or longdesc can be added, but I guess making alt texts (aka description) empty by default and requiring them to be filled in might be a good idea. Is the 80 characters limit that you mention part of official guidelines, or just an estimate that you came up with?

jpetso’s picture

jpetso commented

Ah ok, read up on the above-linked issue now. Still need to read up on the official accessibility documents, though.

Also, I noticed that restricting texts to 80 characters might be odd if another widget (like the generic file edit widget) had a longer text entered before, that text then wouldn't be able to stay as is if the generic widget is afterwards replaced by an image widget.

Perhaps allow longer texts if they've been longer than 80 characters before - that way, if image widgets are consequently used then the alt can't be longer than 80 characters, and can stay the way the were before if the user had entered something longer and widget priority changes afterwards. Does that sound like a workable solution for the length issue?

henrrrik’s picture

henrrrik commented

That sounds like a good solution.

The 80 characters limit isn't specified in WCAG 1.0 (it only says "short"), but has become an informal best practice rule and the Cynthia Says validator imposes that limit: http://www.cynthiasays.com/About%20Reports/Alt%20Quality.htm

henrrrik’s picture

henrrrik commented

Another great thing to have would be optional default alt and title text with support for tokens. I've created a patch for ImageField that does this (#277637: Default alt and title text with token support). If you think it's a good idea I can give porting it to FileField Image a go.

scottrigby’s picture

scottrigby
he/him
Primary language English
Location Brooklyn, NY
commented

A caption would be lovely – I'm not deft enough to propose a patch, but I'll volunteer to test it :)

drewish’s picture

drewish commented

subscribing

mgifford’s picture

mgifford
he/him
Primary language English
commented
Issue tags: +Accessibility

adding accessibility tag

jpetso’s picture

jpetso commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

This module is now phased out in favor of FileField/ImageField 6.x-3.0. All issues are "won't fix" because the module is essentially dead. Please have a look at the project page for some explanations.