<bmx-avatar>

<bmx-avatar name="Ada Lovelace" src="/people/ada.jpg"></bmx-avatar>
<bmx-avatar name="Grace Hopper"></bmx-avatar>

WHAT THIS COMPONENT IS ACTUALLY FOR

It is an image that is usually not there. In most applications most people have never uploaded one, so the initials are not a fallback being handled politely - they are how the component normally looks, and the photograph is the exception. The tint behind them comes from the name, so the same person is the same colour on every page and the eye learns them; it is derived rather than random because a random one changes on every render and again between a server pass and the browser's. See src/core/avatar.ts.

"AL" IS A TRUNCATION, AND IS NOT READ OUT

Initials are an abbreviation the layout asked for, in exactly the way 99+ is on a badge, and they get the same treatment: the letters are drawn aria-hidden and the accessible name is the whole name. A screen reader that says "A L" has been handed a compromise that never applied to it.

DECORATIVE OR NOT IS THE CONSUMER'S CALL, BECAUSE ONLY THEY CAN SEE THE ROW

An avatar beside a name that is already written on the page is decoration, and announcing it means every row of a list is read twice. An avatar on its own - in a stack, in a table cell, as the only thing identifying who commented - is the identification, and hiding it loses the person entirely. The component cannot see which it is, so decorative is a property and the documentation says which way to set it. It is false by default, because a name said twice is a nuisance and a name never said is a barrier.

A name is not automatically an announcement, though: with no name and no alt there is nothing to say, and the avatar is silent whatever decorative says. An anonymous glyph announced as "image" is noise.

NO size PROPERTY

Size is continuous, so it is --bmx-avatar-size rather than a property with three names in it - a customer who needs 34px between your medium and your large should not have to fork the component to get it. Same rule as the rest of the library; see the conventions in the handover.