FRAME with valid LONGDESC  
Section 508 1194.22(a); WAI / WCAG 1.0 checkpoint 1.1
 
 
Issue Description

The frame's LONGDESC attribute is invalid because of one of the following reasons:

  • It points to a non-existing local file or web resource
  • It points to a non-HTML resource
 
 
How to fix

Ensure that the link specified by the LONGDESC attribute is working.

Note that the W3C/WAI discourages using the LONGDESC attribute for framed images, and suggests instead having the frame point to a separate HTML file that includes the image and some explanatory text.

 
 
Issue Explanation

The LONGDESC attribute can be used to provide a long description of the associated FRAME tag when the description would not fit in the TITLE attribute. This would be needed, for example, if the frame contained only an image with no text around it.

The LONGDESC attribute describes the frame content so that users without graphics-enabled browsers can still effectively understand what is being presented in the page. The advent of hand-held, text-only browsers makes the use of textual descriptions more important now than ever.

The W3C/WAI discourages putting an image directly in a frame (to learn why, see http:www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/present/frames.html#h-16.4.2) and suggests instead having the frame point to a separate HTML file that includes the image and some explanatory text.