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Re: image maps

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Oct 10, 2008 6:10PM

Can you explain your reasoning Jim? We find that image maps often cause
problems during user testing for the reasons I mentioned. If good 'alt'
attributes are provided, it is not unusual for image maps to be more
accessible to screen reader users than they are to sighted users.

Sighted people who use keyboard navigation often have difficulty seeing
which area has focus and identifying what that area does. 'alt' attributes
don't help these users at all.

If images are turned off in all current graphical user agents, the 'alt'
attribute for the base image is displayed but the 'alt' attributes for the
areas are not. That makes the image map entirely unusable other than by
trial and error.

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jim Thatcher
Sent: 11 October 2008 00:29
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'; <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] image maps

That is silly.

There are no "issues" with client-side image maps - just be sure you have
good alt-text on each area element and the base image too (the latter could
be alt="").

No real issue with server-side image maps either - just do not use them!

Jim

Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
512-306-0931

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:40 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED> ; 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] image maps

There are lots of potential issues, all of which can be avoided by the
provision of redundant text links. These include:

Inability to see which area has focus. Often you cannot see the outline of
the area that has focus because there is insufficient colour contrast with
the background. Other times the area is very small. Sometimes the tab
sequence is all over the place so you don't know where to look.

Inability to identify the target of a link. This is a common problem when
using maps of countries - if I was looking for Dakota (for instance) I would
have no idea where it is on the map or what shape it is. Sometimes the areas
are so small that there is no room for a text label.

Common browsers do not support images maps well if images are turned off.
You would hope that the outline and alternate text for each area would be
shown, but this does not happen. You just see the outline of the entire map
and its alternate text.

Steve



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Donna Jones
Sent: 09 October 2008 06:41
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] image maps

Greetings everyone:

i have a question about image maps.

what kind of accessibility issues do they have? are they accessible at all?

thanks very much.

Donna