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Thread: A question about ALT attributes
Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)
From: Webb, KerryA
Date: Sun, Nov 14 2010 3:15PM
Subject: A question about ALT attributes
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Australian Governments are in the process of planning how to achieve compliance with WCAG 2.0, so there's a flurry of training sessions going on so that we can assess the size of the task.
I went to one last week and am thinking more about various aspects of accessibility, including the humble ALT attribute.
Take the example of 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="". But then, they're promoting safety campaigns, so maybe they should have ALT text to provide a little extra promotion.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Kerry
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From: Shrirang Prakash Sahasrabudhe
Date: Sun, Nov 14 2010 9:03PM
Subject: Re: A question about ALT attributes
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Hi Kerry,
You are right.
They are certainly not decorative images
Wcag2 defines "pure decoration" as
"Serving only an aesthetic purpose, providing no information, and having no functionality"
The images are there to communicate the importance of road safety, hence fall under "provide information" category.
And I feel the alternatives
alt=Drink or drive - It's really that simple
alt=Road safety - Its everyone's responsibility
Are quite straight forward and adequately communicate the message.
Thanks
Shrirang
-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Webb, KerryA
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 3:31 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] a question about ALT attributes
Australian Governments are in the process of planning how to achieve compliance with WCAG 2.0, so there's a flurry of training sessions going on so that we can assess the size of the task.
I went to one last week and am thinking more about various aspects of accessibility, including the humble ALT attribute.
Take the example of 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="". But then, they're promoting safety campaigns, so maybe they should have ALT text to provide a little extra promotion.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Kerry
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This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person.
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From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Sun, Nov 14 2010 10:51PM
Subject: Re: A question about ALT attributes
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Hi Kerry,
The images in question are part of an unordered list. There are two problems with this markup that affect how the images are used and therefore the alt text.
1. You would typically want to group items together into a list that are for a given purpose. The images and other list items in the list in question serve different purposes.
2. The first list item contains an image and a hyperlink. The alt text does not make sense next to the adjacent hyperlink text. For example: Drink or drive - It's really that simple Privacy
A better way to organize the footer (keeping the same visual layout) would be like this:
<div>
<p>
<img ... />
</p>
<ul>
...
</ul>
<p>
<img ... />
</p>
</div>
Take care,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com
----- Original Message -----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Sent: 2010-11-14T14:14:32
Subject: [WebAIM] A question about ALT attributes
Australian Governments are in the process of planning how to achieve compliance with WCAG 2.0, so there's a flurry of training sessions going on so that we can assess the size of the task.
I went to one last week and am thinking more about various aspects of accessibility, including the humble ALT attribute.
Take the example of 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="". But then, they're promoting safety campaigns, so maybe they should have ALT text to provide a little extra promotion.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Kerry
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This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person.
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mon, Nov 15 2010 9:57AM
Subject: Re: A question about ALT attributes
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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/