Create explainer-extended-descriptions.md #753
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gautierchomel
requested review from
GeorgeKerscher,
avneeshsingh,
clapierre,
gregoriopellegrino and
mattgarrish
clapierre
reviewed
Nov 26, 2025
clapierre
reviewed
Nov 26, 2025
Collaborator
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Great work Gautier! |
mattgarrish
reviewed
Nov 27, 2025
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| Users encounter images and non-text content that convey complex information (e.g., technical diagrams, charts, mathematical notation, museum objects) where a short `alt` is insufficient and an extended, structured description is provided. Without clear affordances, users may not discover these descriptions or understand the linking between them and the primary content. | ||
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| Authors and reading systems need a reliable, discoverable, and programmatic way to identify and surface extended descriptions in consistent ways without breaking reading flow or excluding non-AT users. |
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Mixing authors and reading systems here is kind of confusing. I got to the part about surfacing descriptions and thought maybe AT was intended instead of author. I'd suggest separating the authoring and device concerns and adding reading systems and AT together for the need to programmatically identify and report semantics. Otherwise, it leaves open the question of what benefit this has for AT and that could lead to pushback that this belongs in epub:type.
| - Place the extended description in a separate HTML file (e.g., appendix or dedicated section). | ||
| - In the main content, after the image, add a link to the extended description. The link can be text or an icon (with accessible name). | ||
| - The image should have a brief `alt` and an `aria-details` attribute pointing to the link's ID. | ||
| - The link should have a unique ID. |
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This can probably be omitted. If IDs aren't unique, then you have a validity and accessibility problem.
Matt: > You can only have one hyphen in a role and it must be to separate a module prefix from the name (so only doc- and graphics- are currently recognized). That's why we have short names like doc-noteref and doc-biblioref for links. > These should be more like doc-descref and doc-extendeddesc (minus doc- if we're proposing them for aria proper)
…t using epub:type or rdfa/microdata. Also why doc-noteref/doc-footnote are similar but reusing the semantics could be confusing.
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