Meeting minutes
Extended Descriptions - w3c/epub-specs#2691
Gregorio Pellegrino: I volunteered to work on the standardized aproach to semantically describe
… the image itself and the backlink that takes people to their original postion
… Adobe will implement extended descriptions
… this is different than alt text, extended descriptions have no standard way to make them
… we are looking for a standard way to have extended descriptions across publishers
… similar to the discussion we had about footnotes
… so RS can leverage best practices and other tools also
… we did an experiment, linked in the github issues
… uses just the tags we have with the standards and existing ARIA codes and attributesd
… I have put together a main content file with 2 images
… one figure has a caption with a link to the extended description
… for both descriptions there is an ARIA tag called aria-details
… the extended description is in the spine with the attribute "linear: no"
… in this separate file we have containers made with section elements. Within them we have the image, the desccription
… the image is hidden from screen readers
… the extended description can use tags beyond text
… in tests, we want to know if these can be programmatically identified
<Gautier Chomel> Gregorio's poc is available at https://
Gregorio Pellegrino: so you can identify the links to extended description
… at this time we cannot identify the extended description div with a role
… we see that maybe one or two roles could help identify the links to the extended descriptions and description containers
… we are open to discussion right now
Charles LaPierre: When we first had this discussion, the objection was that publishers didn't want an ugly link under their images
Geroge: an icon might be more palatable for publishers. So their would be a link with alt text
Charles LaPierre: what has changed? Are publishers more receptive to this?
… or is still the clickable image link preferred?
Gregorio Pellegrino: the technique we are proposing could work with icons or text links
… but the semantics behind it would be the same
Wendy Reid: did we do anything with the details element? Does that mess up pagination?
… any guidance for the icon must be very clear so it meets a minimum touch target size
… making the images themselves links creates other problems for RS
Ivan Herman: anything we do we should also do it in our own document
… we are talking about an HTML document, it doesn't work in our current spec to make a separate document for the extended description
… is there another solution that is plain text readable for everyone
Charles LaPierre: regarding the visible URL under an image that you click on to get to the extended description is what publishers objected to
… the link doesn't have to be to a separate document in the spine
… this is just another HTML page that is separate
… the summary details, our previous option works well in HTML
… RS have problems with extended descriptions they can expand past the end of the current page and not be fully displayed
… RS say this would be hard to fix
Gregorio Pellegrino: in EPUB we try to leave the user experience to the RS and the contetn to the EPUB
… the semantic tagging we are proposing maintains this
… so the content creator is not imposing an experience on the user
… in the first experiment, we tried having an extended description on the same page isn't simple for the publisher
… adding external files is easier so that's what we propose as the standard
George Kerscher: people are asking us to tell them how to do this, and not give them options
… when we identify and icon, we should try to standardize what this icon is and what it looks like
… so it becomes known to readers that it will lead to an extended description
… we would have the semantics on this through a DPUB ARIA role
… it shouldn't take as long as it has in the past to get new DPUB ARIA roles if the community wants it
Shinya Takami: my colleagues tested this
… you propose to add a new feature only when people are using assitive technologies?
George Kerscher: I think having the icon would be visible for everyone and would not require assistive technology
Shinya Takami: so the icon or the link would be visible for all?
Shinya Takami: is this different from footnotes?
George Kerscher: these descriptions can get quite long, having them in a modal may be too long
… if you have the semantics from DPUB ARIA a reading system can put them anywhere they want
<Laurent Le Meur> https://
Laurent Le Meur: there are already recommendations. Having just one would help reading systems
<Laurent Le Meur> https://
<Laurent Le Meur> https://
Laurent Le Meur: would we contact Daisy? APLM? and the knowledge base?
… would these 3 documents be updated by decisions made here?
… so the other options would be suppressed in this case?
George Kerscher: yes
Avneesh Singh: these techniques are specific to the EPUB world
… we need to make these because of the constraints of our environment
… we will be working on details about the visibility of links, etc. in the WG
… can the larger group focus on the reading systems
… what does the reading system need? Are new roles required only for the extended description text?
… we plan to discuss this with the APA maybe at TPAC
Ivan Herman: related to Laurent's question? What is the intention of this?
… what is the idea to give the text the maximum visibility
Avneesh Singh: the idea is to develop best practices within the WG
… maybe a new specification on DPUB or DPUB ARIA
… this best practice will inform what specification changes we need to make
Brady Duga: looking at the examples, how do we know there is a double indirection?
… now the ARIA details are a link to something else that should be extracted
… if you go to the details, you would want to extract the extended descriptions and take the user directly there
… would reading systems know this is a double indirection?
Gregorio Pellegrino: using ARIA details as an attribute may cause this issue, thinking that a RS can follow the link change without showing the user an external document
Brady Duga: the heuristic is if the ARIA details is a link you follow that link to get the details, but don't follow it if it isn't a link
George Kerscher: so this role, there are two possibilities. One is an extended description reference on an anchor, so you know it is a link
… then the target is the extended description.
… in the HTML world where they may want to use the details element and linking and not taking people away from a page
… you could then put the extended description attribute in the details element.
Hadrien Gardeur: thinking about the expectations. We set expectations that are different from the web
… there is probably and expectation that the user can access a detail view
… another is links, but we don't treat links the same way
… we would identify that this link is somehow different and we would display it in a different way, maybe a new view that could be dismissed
… and when I think of readaloud, what is expected from a reading system?
… mention that there is an extended description? just play the description?
… these considerations are more important than our technical solution
… i don't think we have thoroughly discussed what these expectations are
Gregorio Pellegrino: and there is another expectation in the supply chain
… that tools can open an epub and understand when there is an extended description
Brady Duga: I think a role will be helpful, because by the time you get to a link you need to know it is an extended description
… in readaloud you could get the link and replace the image, does it get read aloud?
without a role, you might need to figure out that an extended description link is somehow different
<Gregorio Pellegrino> +1 for Brady
Avneesh Singh: another topic, we would like to discuss this with the APA
… most of the people in the APA will be online. It is becoming challenging to arrange the meeting at TPAC
… perhaps we can arrange a virtual meeting at another time?
<Charles LaPierre> +1 to APA meeting ahead of time 2 weeks would be good, week before harder :)
Wendy Reid: as long as it is OK with the APA it is no problem for us
<Ivan Herman> details' def
Ivan Herman: looking at the definition of ARIA details, list a number of roles
… is the idea here that we would add one or more roles here?
… the APA can accept or refuse them?
Gregorio Pellegrino: with the plain link, we are already safe
Ivan Herman: the behavior has to be defined in some way
… looking at the details, we are hoping to add bullet items under those details
Gregorio Pellegrino: yes. and if we need other roles to work with the extended description
Charles LaPierre: in that link on the ARIA details one of the items (Example 36) is pointing to an anchor that points to an extended description
Ivan Herman: but then there are no details about what should happen
Wendy Reid: I may have to talk to the ARIA group about extending the details
George Kerscher: we have talked about images and those are most of the cases but there may be other elements
… for instance super complex tables
Ivan Herman: sometimes complex mathematical formulas require descriptions as well
Wendy Reid: we will contact the APA to set up a new meeting time
Ivan Herman: maybe we can get this meeting done before TPAC but we can maintain the meeting time at TPAC
Avneesh Singh: perhaps we can have a follow up meeting after TPAC
Ivan Herman: agreed
Wendy Reid: is there anything else we should be doing in the meantime?
Avneesh Singh: we need to pinpoint our exact ask for the APA
Wendy Reid: this was a really good discussion, we will push the other agenda items to another time