[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 5566] ALT attribute value not displayed when image is missing

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5566





--- Comment #34 from Alexey Proskuryakov <ap at webkit.org>  2010-11-16 09:19:42 PST ---
There are three things that need to be well understood to move forward on this bug:
- whether rendering of ALT for missing images affects accessibility at all;
- whether it is desirable for sighted users;
- what other browsers do, and what HTML5 says.

The bug doesn't have answers to all of these yet, but without the answers, it will just stay unresolved indefinitely. Here is what I got from reading the discussion here:
- there are multiple claims in this bug that it affects blind people, and fixing it is required by certain accessibility related standards. It would be great if people who posted that information could comment on how this bug affects accessibility.
- what is desirable is of course a personal preference. I know that I generally don't want any content that's normally invisible to suddenly become visible when images get lost (for example, in Internet Archive). I also want broken images to be clearly identifiable. Those pages in Internet Archive are already a mess, adding tons of text snippets from ALT attributes would just make them even less readable.
- other browsers do display ALT text for 404 images, although in different incompatible ways. HTML5 implies that it should be displayed (formally specifying what exactly browsers display it of course out of scope for it). But there are no known affected sites - the chromium bug mentions a single one which doesn't exist any more.

So, I see this as a choice between behavior that's good for users and behavior that matches other browsers, but the choice doesn't affect Web compatibility in any material way.

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