Comics
Comics are an example of visual content whose text equivalent is especially difficult to create. While not every comic can be fully appreciated through a textual description, it is often desirable to convey some of the meaning and humor with text equivalents. The ALT attribute should provide the title of the comic and note that it is a comic. A link to the long text description should be provided in the LONGDESC attribute and also somewhere on the page. The long description is a description of the scene, dialog, and action that the comic portreys. A script format may be the best way to convey the comic content.
Example of an comicstrip made accessible: Dizabled, by John & Claire Lytle
The longdesc of the Dizabled comic
Accessible image markup and D-link:
<img src="images/dizabled_102898.gif"
alt="The comicstrip 'Dizabled', 10/28/98"
title="The comicstrip 'Dizabled', 10/28/98"
longdesc="dizabled_102898_description.html"/>
alt="The comicstrip 'Dizabled', 10/28/98"
title="The comicstrip 'Dizabled', 10/28/98"
longdesc="dizabled_102898_description.html"/>
Long description markup
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd ">
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Dizabled, by John and Claire Lytle</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Dizabled, by John and Claire Lytle</h1>
<h2>10/28/06</h2>
<ol title="Comic Strip Frame Descriptions">
<li>First Frame: A buzzing chainsaw blade cuts through the side of an open doorway.</li>
<li>Middle Frame: The chainsaw has almost finished carving a chunk from the side of the door frame.</li>
<li>Last Frame: Our wheelchair-bound hero, chainsaw in hand, emerges through the newly accessible doorway.
<q>The frontiers are not east, west, north, or south, but when one faces a fact.</q></li>
</ol>
</body>
</html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Dizabled, by John and Claire Lytle</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Dizabled, by John and Claire Lytle</h1>
<h2>10/28/06</h2>
<ol title="Comic Strip Frame Descriptions">
<li>First Frame: A buzzing chainsaw blade cuts through the side of an open doorway.</li>
<li>Middle Frame: The chainsaw has almost finished carving a chunk from the side of the door frame.</li>
<li>Last Frame: Our wheelchair-bound hero, chainsaw in hand, emerges through the newly accessible doorway.
<q>The frontiers are not east, west, north, or south, but when one faces a fact.</q></li>
</ol>
</body>
</html>