Re: Alt= In Images

From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
To: <blinux-list@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: Alt= In Images
Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 16:28:18 -0400 (EDT)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.30.0109081621370.22912-100000@tux.w3.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20010908193241.VHWD557.femail15.sdc1.sfba.home.com@eklhad>

Not putting alt tags on things that are actually important to conveying the
message is a very bad thing (Trademark, patent pending). It means people
don't know what is there. Some browsers will try to guess, but it is a pretty
third-rate solution when the author could often have done a first-rate job.

Where the image is not doing anything except taking space, I would advise
people to put alt="". This is becuase browsers aren't sure whether they need
to try and repair images or not based on any good criteria - either they will
add hints for all images, or just images that are used for links (problem if
there is an image that conveys information but isn't a link), or will not try
to do anything. So if you do this well-made but basic browsers won't put
anything like "foo.gif" or "none" all over the page where it is unnecessary.

(Thanks for taking time to make stuff accessible - it is important to lots of
people who might not seem to need it as well as people who do)

cheers

Charles McCN

On Sat, 8 Sep 2001, Karl Dahlke wrote:

  > I don't use alt tags in my web pages.

  I agree with Andor.
  If the image is just for pretty, don't bother.
  But if it's a clickable icon, a link or submit button,
  put an alt= description in.
  If you don't, my browser is a little smarter than lynx.
  It looks at the file name you are linking to and shows me the tail of that.
  If an image links to this.that.com/foo/bar/shopping.html,
  then I'll read  {shopping}
  I won't even know it was an image,
  but I'll realize there is a link there, and I have a good idea what it's for.
  Course this strategy doesn't always help.
  Sometimes the linked file ends in index.html,
  and then all I get is   {index}
  Maybe in this case I should back up and present the directory name??
  Well it wouldn't be necessary if everyone used alt= on linking images.

  Thanks for taking the time to make your site accessible to all.
  We do appreciate it.
  Karl

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-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)