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Re: A question about ALT attributes

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Nov 15, 2010 9:57AM

Webb, KerryA wrote:

> http://www.transport.act.gov.au/current_projects.html
>
> At the foot of the page, there are two images promoting Road Safety
> campaigns. They don't link to anything, so I was inclined to say
> that they are purely decorative and therefore should have alt="".

Their not being links does not make them decorative. Non-link images in a
list of items where other items are (textual) links is very confusing,
however. This is the serious accessibility issue with the list. A secondary
issue is that all text in the images except the largest texts are very
difficult to read, even with an eyesight that is rather normal. The first
image seems to contain even text that is beyond all readability - rather
irritating.

> But then, they're promoting safety campaigns, so maybe they should
> have ALT text to provide a little extra promotion.

The alt texts as such are adequate - they simply present the (legible) text
that appears in the images, therefore conveying the same message as one can
see in the image. In addition to being adequate textual replacements, they
may even improve the situation in normal graphic browsing, since the user
may know how to ask his browser to render the alternative text.

So the problem is really with the images themselves and their placement.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/