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Re: alt="" -- causing problems? with who?

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mar 8, 2007 9:40AM

On 3/8/07, Raena < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hello,
>
> A coworker recently told me that she'd heard that using alt="" triggers a
> bug in certain screenreaders.

I have yet to see a *modern* case where alt="" causes any problems. I
know that some screenreader (I can't even remember which) many years
ago incorrectly insisted on alt=" ". Using alt=" " is not recommended.
I've seen an adverse situation with this usage where instead of
ignoring the image like they should, a screenreader will identify each
image then attempt to read the non-empty alt text. In other words, a
series of decorative images might be identified as "image image image
image".

Also, by my understanding, alt=" " seems to go a bit against the HTML
spec. WCAG 2.0 does say that alt=" " is valid, but that alt="" is
recommended.

Hopefully that clarifies things a bit.

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org