24 ms·

Editor of HTML5 questions need for alt text in movie poster frames

51 points by pufuwozu 16y ago

devmonk 16y ago
Wow. :( "I'm confused. Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?" That is pretty bad. I think they need a group of people with disabilities to review all of the specs. There have to be many more issues like this lurking (that those with disabilities could probably already point me to).
- rimantas 16y ago
  Wow. :( "I'm confused. Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?" There are real needs and perceived needs. Trying to understand the potential use cases is not bad in any way.
  - jrwoodruff 16y ago
    You're probably right, and I sure hope that's what he's doing. I have to admit it did come across pretty bad when I read it though :)
    - amackera 16y ago
      I think it probably sounded that way due to the editorializing of the headline. If instead it had read "Editor of HTML5 tries hard to gain a better understanding of potential use cases facing people with disabilities" you might have read it differently.
- leftnode 16y ago
  I thought the same thing at first, but this post provides an alternate thought: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1742913 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1742913
- weego 16y ago
  A non-sighted user hasn't managed to get to a video without somehow navigating their way there. The people replying to the tracker seem to be under the assumption that a non-sighted user will just mystically be presented with a video and not know what it is all about. I can't imagine a case where this is likely. Navigating their way there gives them context to what the video will be (in the use case that the video is on a blank page). If the page contains textual content then the user will get context from the text. If the video is completely unrelated to location context or to page-level context then the content will be of little to no interest, so providing an alt description adds no real-world value. Also note that unless the video has audio captioning then the entire video is of little to no interest. Imagine watching something like Lost in Translation with no visual input and no descriptive captioning.
  - isleyaardvark 16y ago
    I can not only imagine cases like that, I've encountered those cases. Picture a blog with multiple embedded videos, presented without comment.
- kvs 16y ago
  That line of questioning may sound offensive but, I think, Ian is trying to separate what the user "want" and what the user "need."
- olavk 16y ago
  Note that this is not a question of providing an alt text for e.g. an image of a movie poster on IMDB. The 'poster' in this case is specifically a single image preview for a video shown before the video starts playing. According to the spec "typically one of the first non-blank frames". It can be compared with e.g. a low resolution preview of a high-resolution image, as was used in the early days of the web. It is definitely not obvious that it would make sense to have an alternative text specifically for the lo-res preview as distinct from the alt text for the image itself. Note that the video element already support an alternative text description - its just the single-frame preview which doesn't support a separate text. I think Ians questioning of this feature is completely valid.
  - amackera 16y ago
    The only objection I can think of is that the poster can be intended to convey meaning. If this meaning is entirely lost without an alt text, then the lack of an alt text for the poster is an oversight.
    - olavk 16y ago
      But then again the use of colors in an image conveys meaning. That does not mean that there should be alt texts for each color channel. The alternative content should be provided at a level that makes sense if you don't have access to the specific media. The HTML5 spec specifically addresses accessibility for video like this: To make video content accessible to the blind, deaf, and those with other physical or cognitive disabilities, authors are expected to provide alternative media streams and/or to embed accessibility aids (such as caption or subtitle tracks, audio description tracks, or sign-language overlays) into their media streams. (http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/video.html#attr-video-poster http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/...) This is much more sensible that providing an alt text for the first frame in the video.
      - devmonk 16y ago
        The standard should support an accessible version of what is staticly and dynamically displayed in the browser to a non-disabled person. If a non-disabled person will always see that frame on load, that frame needs an accessible way of making sense of that frame.
- thristian 16y ago
  If you have a <video> element, you can control what frame is displayed before the video is played, by inserting a <poster> element into it. If the page author doesn't explicitly specify a poster frame, the browser is free to choose a frame to display. The person who filed the bug is (effectively) saying "if the page author specifies a poster frame, it should be possible to add alt text. If the page author uses the default poster frame, it should be impossible to add alt text." I believe the question Hixie was getting at was "why would you (a blind user) care about an explicitly-set poster frame but not a default poster frame?" which, I think, is reasonable.
wccrawford 16y ago
I'm not surprised that he has trouble understanding that. The 'meaning' of the poster frame isn't clear from that conversation. Does he want a description of what's being displayed in just the poster frame? How does this differ from the title of the video? For example: Title: Cat jumping on bed Frame: Image of cat jumping towards bed Video: Cat jumps toward bed and lands on it. The vast majority of the time, the poster frame isn't going to be different than the title of the video. Now, I agree that when it is different, there should be a way to specify an alt text for it. But to require it when it's the same as the title seems silly to me.
- mwilcox 16y ago
  That's not really a very good example, as many videos are far more complex than that.
- bapadna 16y ago
  To use a non-hypothetical example, right now I'm watching a series: Title: Dexter. Description: A likable Miami police forensics expert moonlights as a serial killer of criminals who he believes have escaped justice. The exact episode also has those attributes: Title: My Bad. Description: In the aftermath of last season's chilling finale, Rita's death has left Dexter feeling responsible, possibly even...guilty. Unable to deal with the trauma, Dexter makes a drastic decision that will impact everyone around him. Quinn stirs up trouble at the station when he notes that Rita's murder, which is being pinned on the Trinity Killer, doesn't fit his normal murder profile. Things get even more heated when Quinn suggests to LaGuerta that they look at the husband: Dexter Morgan. Meanwhile, Quinn offers Debra much needed support, causing her to see Quinn in a new light. ---- Simply put, titles and descriptions are not the same thing. It seems silly to me that somebody would advocate that they should be treated as the same thing just because there is overlap when the content is a 15 second video of a cat.
  - pornel 16y ago
    Your descriptions describe video, not poster frame. The issue is only about describing poster frame of the video (a placeholder picture that is displayed before user hits 'play').
pornel 16y ago
Isn't he simply questioning an assumption? (assumption being that every bit of image always needs an alternative that is not in normal flow of page) Ian's often repeated naive-sounding "Why would you do that? What's the use case?" has shot down many feature requests that seemed good in theory, but weren't that useful in practice. Perhaps description of the video makes description of poster redundant? Maybe one can use ARIA? Maybe media framework can extract description from the video file? Even if there is a way to describe the poster, will authors actually care to do it? Will they ignore it (naively assuming blind users don't watch videos) or fill it with boilerplate?
- noibl 16y ago
  > Perhaps description of the video makes description of poster redundant? Maybe one can use ARIA? Maybe media framework can extract description from the video file? The plan seems to be that <track kind="descriptions" src="desc.en.srt"> be used as a child of <video> to provide descriptions in sync with the audio. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/video.html#attr-track-kind http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/...
- jhuckestein 16y ago
  Ian said "Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?" That is NOT questioning an assumption. He seems to imply that blind users have no use for an information that is interesting to other people.
  - DisposaBoy 16y ago
    Or may it's an honest question. May he's just skeptical(I am) and really wants to know. After-all there are no stupid questions, only stupid people, right?
  - pornel 16y ago
    Is it interesting? Would you be interested in description of image representing video if you could get description of the actual video? — I watched a funny video! — Cool! What was on the poster image?
jhuckestein 16y ago
There is a significant difference between the title and what's in the poster image. One commenter on the thread pointed to the Casablanca Wikipedia page. The "poster" image for Casablanca has an alt text: "Black-and-white film screenshot with the title of the film in fancy font. Below it is the text "A Warner Bros. - First National Picture". In the background is a crowded nightclub filled with many people." If you imagine a movie being embedded in a webpage, that might be the alt text for the poster image whereas the title might be "Casablanca".
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
"I give you a very classy example: Casablanca" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_%28film%29 I had to check this out. The alt text on the images really are excellent.
- jrwoodruff 16y ago
  I think I will actually use this page as an example for people who don't understand how the alt tag should be used. These are really good.
- extension 16y ago
  OTOH, it kind of goes to Hickson's point that describing frames of movies to the blind is not very useful when the frame is only there to give a hint of what the movie looks like. Do I really care that Casablanca contains a shot with "a man standing next to another man looking at two other men with people in the background" or some such?
  - jhuckestein 16y ago
    The OP of the issue explained that he often uses the alt descriptions of movie posters to decide which movie he wants to see in the theatre.
    - pornel 16y ago
      Poster frames of videos on the web usually aren't the hollywood kind of posters. They're usually a random frame and/or logo of the site. Also, time spent on describing poster could be spent on describing the video itself, which might give better indication whether video is worth watching.
    - olavk 16y ago
      But that has nothing to do with the 'poster' attribute on the 'video' element! Despite its name, this attribute is not intended for picture of a poster for the movie. It is intended for a preview frame to show in the player before the movie starts playing - the spec suggests one of the first non-blank frames of the video. It's not like they suddenly want to disallow alt text on movie posters on the web.
shaunfs 16y ago
Unfortunately the SEO industry will make this a pain for all of us just like they did with stuffing image alt text in the early 2000's.
js2 16y ago
Flagged for misleading title. How about "Editor of HTML5 questions need for alt text in movie poster frames." This would 1) be less editorializing; 2) make this a submission of a technical issue as opposed to a submission questioning Ian's competence.
gojomo 16y ago
The submission title, "Editor of HTML5 (Ian Hickson) shows poor understanding of accessibility", is unnecessarily personalizing, editorializing, and polarizing. It's likely Hickson's questions, and reluctance to accept a specific proposal without more data, are a matter of seeking understanding, and working through different ideas about what the proper significance and use of a 'poster' image for video might be. (A better title might be: "Debating fine points of HTML5 accessibility: video 'poster' images and alt taxt".)
olalonde 16y ago
This really inspired me to write meaningful alternative texts (alt) on images. Never realized how important they were to the blind.
bphogan 16y ago
This type of editorializing is absolutely out of line. Ian is obviously trying to understand the other side, which is more than many developers ever try to do. As a low vision user of the web since its beginnings, I have encountered site after site designed for low vision and blind users based on advice and recommendations from people with good eyesight. You can't understand what a person needs unless you ask them directly. That's what Mr. Hickson is doing here. And lets not forget the more important matter - videos need transcripts so that the blind and deaf can follow along. A few days ago I asked for feedback on how I might better explain accessibility to developers over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716463 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716463 - issues like this are exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. Feel free to leave comments there if you have them.

51 points by pufuwozu 16y ago

Wow. :( "I'm confused. Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?" That is pretty bad. I think they need a group of people with disabilities to review all of the specs. There have to be many more issues like this lurking (that those with disabilities could probably already point me to).

rimantas 16y ago
Wow. :( "I'm confused. Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?" There are real needs and perceived needs. Trying to understand the potential use cases is not bad in any way.
- jrwoodruff 16y ago
  You're probably right, and I sure hope that's what he's doing. I have to admit it did come across pretty bad when I read it though :)
  - amackera 16y ago
    I think it probably sounded that way due to the editorializing of the headline. If instead it had read "Editor of HTML5 tries hard to gain a better understanding of potential use cases facing people with disabilities" you might have read it differently.
leftnode 16y ago
I thought the same thing at first, but this post provides an alternate thought: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1742913 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1742913
weego 16y ago
A non-sighted user hasn't managed to get to a video without somehow navigating their way there. The people replying to the tracker seem to be under the assumption that a non-sighted user will just mystically be presented with a video and not know what it is all about. I can't imagine a case where this is likely. Navigating their way there gives them context to what the video will be (in the use case that the video is on a blank page). If the page contains textual content then the user will get context from the text. If the video is completely unrelated to location context or to page-level context then the content will be of little to no interest, so providing an alt description adds no real-world value. Also note that unless the video has audio captioning then the entire video is of little to no interest. Imagine watching something like Lost in Translation with no visual input and no descriptive captioning.
- isleyaardvark 16y ago
  I can not only imagine cases like that, I've encountered those cases. Picture a blog with multiple embedded videos, presented without comment.
kvs 16y ago
That line of questioning may sound offensive but, I think, Ian is trying to separate what the user "want" and what the user "need."
olavk 16y ago
Note that this is not a question of providing an alt text for e.g. an image of a movie poster on IMDB. The 'poster' in this case is specifically a single image preview for a video shown before the video starts playing. According to the spec "typically one of the first non-blank frames". It can be compared with e.g. a low resolution preview of a high-resolution image, as was used in the early days of the web. It is definitely not obvious that it would make sense to have an alternative text specifically for the lo-res preview as distinct from the alt text for the image itself. Note that the video element already support an alternative text description - its just the single-frame preview which doesn't support a separate text. I think Ians questioning of this feature is completely valid.
- amackera 16y ago
  The only objection I can think of is that the poster can be intended to convey meaning. If this meaning is entirely lost without an alt text, then the lack of an alt text for the poster is an oversight.
  - olavk 16y ago
    But then again the use of colors in an image conveys meaning. That does not mean that there should be alt texts for each color channel. The alternative content should be provided at a level that makes sense if you don't have access to the specific media. The HTML5 spec specifically addresses accessibility for video like this: To make video content accessible to the blind, deaf, and those with other physical or cognitive disabilities, authors are expected to provide alternative media streams and/or to embed accessibility aids (such as caption or subtitle tracks, audio description tracks, or sign-language overlays) into their media streams. (http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/video.html#attr-video-poster http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/...) This is much more sensible that providing an alt text for the first frame in the video.
    - devmonk 16y ago
      The standard should support an accessible version of what is staticly and dynamically displayed in the browser to a non-disabled person. If a non-disabled person will always see that frame on load, that frame needs an accessible way of making sense of that frame.
thristian 16y ago
If you have a <video> element, you can control what frame is displayed before the video is played, by inserting a <poster> element into it. If the page author doesn't explicitly specify a poster frame, the browser is free to choose a frame to display. The person who filed the bug is (effectively) saying "if the page author specifies a poster frame, it should be possible to add alt text. If the page author uses the default poster frame, it should be impossible to add alt text." I believe the question Hixie was getting at was "why would you (a blind user) care about an explicitly-set poster frame but not a default poster frame?" which, I think, is reasonable.

wccrawford 16y ago

I'm not surprised that he has trouble understanding that. The 'meaning' of the poster frame isn't clear from that conversation. Does he want a description of what's being displayed in just the poster frame? How does this differ from the title of the video? For example: Title: Cat jumping on bed Frame: Image of cat jumping towards bed Video: Cat jumps toward bed and lands on it. The vast majority of the time, the poster frame isn't going to be different than the title of the video. Now, I agree that when it is different, there should be a way to specify an alt text for it. But to require it when it's the same as the title seems silly to me.

mwilcox 16y ago
That's not really a very good example, as many videos are far more complex than that.
bapadna 16y ago
To use a non-hypothetical example, right now I'm watching a series: Title: Dexter. Description: A likable Miami police forensics expert moonlights as a serial killer of criminals who he believes have escaped justice. The exact episode also has those attributes: Title: My Bad. Description: In the aftermath of last season's chilling finale, Rita's death has left Dexter feeling responsible, possibly even...guilty. Unable to deal with the trauma, Dexter makes a drastic decision that will impact everyone around him. Quinn stirs up trouble at the station when he notes that Rita's murder, which is being pinned on the Trinity Killer, doesn't fit his normal murder profile. Things get even more heated when Quinn suggests to LaGuerta that they look at the husband: Dexter Morgan. Meanwhile, Quinn offers Debra much needed support, causing her to see Quinn in a new light. ---- Simply put, titles and descriptions are not the same thing. It seems silly to me that somebody would advocate that they should be treated as the same thing just because there is overlap when the content is a 15 second video of a cat.
- pornel 16y ago
  Your descriptions describe video, not poster frame. The issue is only about describing poster frame of the video (a placeholder picture that is displayed before user hits 'play').

pornel 16y ago

Isn't he simply questioning an assumption? (assumption being that every bit of image always needs an alternative that is not in normal flow of page) Ian's often repeated naive-sounding "Why would you do that? What's the use case?" has shot down many feature requests that seemed good in theory, but weren't that useful in practice. Perhaps description of the video makes description of poster redundant? Maybe one can use ARIA? Maybe media framework can extract description from the video file? Even if there is a way to describe the poster, will authors actually care to do it? Will they ignore it (naively assuming blind users don't watch videos) or fill it with boilerplate?

noibl 16y ago
> Perhaps description of the video makes description of poster redundant? Maybe one can use ARIA? Maybe media framework can extract description from the video file? The plan seems to be that <track kind="descriptions" src="desc.en.srt"> be used as a child of <video> to provide descriptions in sync with the audio. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/video.html#attr-track-kind http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/...
jhuckestein 16y ago
Ian said "Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?" That is NOT questioning an assumption. He seems to imply that blind users have no use for an information that is interesting to other people.
- DisposaBoy 16y ago
  Or may it's an honest question. May he's just skeptical(I am) and really wants to know. After-all there are no stupid questions, only stupid people, right?
- pornel 16y ago
  Is it interesting? Would you be interested in description of image representing video if you could get description of the actual video? — I watched a funny video! — Cool! What was on the poster image?

jhuckestein 16y ago

There is a significant difference between the title and what's in the poster image. One commenter on the thread pointed to the Casablanca Wikipedia page. The "poster" image for Casablanca has an alt text: "Black-and-white film screenshot with the title of the film in fancy font. Below it is the text "A Warner Bros. - First National Picture". In the background is a crowded nightclub filled with many people." If you imagine a movie being embedded in a webpage, that might be the alt text for the poster image whereas the title might be "Casablanca".

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

"I give you a very classy example: Casablanca" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_%28film%29 I had to check this out. The alt text on the images really are excellent.

jrwoodruff 16y ago
I think I will actually use this page as an example for people who don't understand how the alt tag should be used. These are really good.
extension 16y ago
OTOH, it kind of goes to Hickson's point that describing frames of movies to the blind is not very useful when the frame is only there to give a hint of what the movie looks like. Do I really care that Casablanca contains a shot with "a man standing next to another man looking at two other men with people in the background" or some such?
- jhuckestein 16y ago
  The OP of the issue explained that he often uses the alt descriptions of movie posters to decide which movie he wants to see in the theatre.
  - pornel 16y ago
    Poster frames of videos on the web usually aren't the hollywood kind of posters. They're usually a random frame and/or logo of the site. Also, time spent on describing poster could be spent on describing the video itself, which might give better indication whether video is worth watching.
  - olavk 16y ago
    But that has nothing to do with the 'poster' attribute on the 'video' element! Despite its name, this attribute is not intended for picture of a poster for the movie. It is intended for a preview frame to show in the player before the movie starts playing - the spec suggests one of the first non-blank frames of the video. It's not like they suddenly want to disallow alt text on movie posters on the web.

shaunfs 16y ago

Unfortunately the SEO industry will make this a pain for all of us just like they did with stuffing image alt text in the early 2000's.

js2 16y ago

Flagged for misleading title. How about "Editor of HTML5 questions need for alt text in movie poster frames." This would 1) be less editorializing; 2) make this a submission of a technical issue as opposed to a submission questioning Ian's competence.

gojomo 16y ago

The submission title, "Editor of HTML5 (Ian Hickson) shows poor understanding of accessibility", is unnecessarily personalizing, editorializing, and polarizing. It's likely Hickson's questions, and reluctance to accept a specific proposal without more data, are a matter of seeking understanding, and working through different ideas about what the proper significance and use of a 'poster' image for video might be. (A better title might be: "Debating fine points of HTML5 accessibility: video 'poster' images and alt taxt".)

olalonde 16y ago

This really inspired me to write meaningful alternative texts (alt) on images. Never realized how important they were to the blind.

bphogan 16y ago

This type of editorializing is absolutely out of line. Ian is obviously trying to understand the other side, which is more than many developers ever try to do. As a low vision user of the web since its beginnings, I have encountered site after site designed for low vision and blind users based on advice and recommendations from people with good eyesight. You can't understand what a person needs unless you ask them directly. That's what Mr. Hickson is doing here. And lets not forget the more important matter - videos need transcripts so that the blind and deaf can follow along. A few days ago I asked for feedback on how I might better explain accessibility to developers over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716463 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716463 - issues like this are exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. Feel free to leave comments there if you have them.