974627 - Decorative images in Firefox accounts page don't need assistive text

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Android Sync, defect, P1)

Description

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Bug 965376 added the following strings to sync_strings.dtd a couple weeks ago:

<!-- Localization note: these describe icons and graphics, and are
     consumed by assistive devices. -->
<!ENTITY fxaccount_checkbox_contentDescription2 'Firefox accounts checkbox graphic'>
<!ENTITY fxaccount_icon_contentDescription2 'Firefox accounts icon'>
<!ENTITY fxaccount_intro_contentDescription2 'Firefox accounts introduction graphics'>
<!ENTITY fxaccount_mail_contentDescription2 'Firefox accounts envelope graphic'>


From the comment, it seems like these strings are meant to be used as alt-text for purely decorative images. Which is a bad idea. Not only is such text not helpful to visually-impaired people, it is actually counter-productive and will only get in the way. 

Please remove these strings from localization and use empty alt attributes instead. These images convey absolutely no meaning and are there for decoration purposes only.

See http://dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/#sec5 if I don't sound credible enough. :)

Comment 1

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

Sure.  Android complains if there's no string, so I put in a string.

Comment 2

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Nick, even if a string is required, can't you use an empty string there, or a no-break space? You wouldn't have to make that localizable, so you'd save time for localizers as well users.

Comment 3

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

(In reply to Rimas Kudelis from comment #2)
> Nick, even if a string is required, can't you use an empty string there, or
> a no-break space? You wouldn't have to make that localizable, so you'd save
> time for localizers as well users.

Sorry, I should have been more explicit: yes, I will use an empty string for all these content descriptions.

Comment 4

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

OK, thanks! :)

Comment 5

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

Attachment: github PR

Not really feeling it, so here are some small tweaks.

Comment 6

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/922daaaeb05a

Comment 7

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

hi nick, sorry had to backout for the suspicion this caused test failures like https://tbpl.mozilla.org/php/getParsedLog.php?id=35928754&tree=Fx-Team

Comment 8

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

Reland:

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/1a14c3cdfa7e

Let's see if the fixes pushed in Bug 979388 (or blind luck!) are sufficient to avoid the earlier issues.

Comment 9

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/1a14c3cdfa7e