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Re: A larger discussion (was RE: Inline Images and ALT text)

for

From: Léonie Watson
Date: Jan 15, 2009 2:00AM

"And it is also entirely feasible (and I would argue more likely) that the user does not care nor want to be informed of the presence of an image just because it's an image. I think your logic is a bit of a stretch."

As has been said in this thread elsewhere, we're unlikely to find full agreement on this. People who lost their sight during their lifetime are likely to respond differently to alt descriptions, than people who were born without sight.

As someone who falls into the former category, and still visualises a great deal, I find that alt descriptions often act as cues to my imagination, as much as they provide an accurate and specific description of something. Take an image with an alt text of "Jared Smith", on a profile page...

The alt text doesn't tell me much about the way Jared looks, but it does give me a cue to visualise a typical profile page in my head. This doesn't deal with specifics, but it does add to my overall sense of how the page might look. It might also give me a cue to consider what Jared actually does look like (tall and strapping I've heard ;). This too can add to the experience of visiting a page, although not perhaps in the conventional way intended by alt descriptions.


"I admit that this is an area of accessibility where there will never be 100% agreement. WebAIM will be compiling results from our screen reader survey in the next few weeks and I think they will generally show that these types of things make absolutely no difference to screen reader users. But they are sure fun for accessibility folks to debate ad nauseum."


Here I suspect you're right. I completed the survey, but don't recall whether people were asked about the time when they lost their sight. I think this would be a critical factor in trying to find a common ground with the issue of alt texts. Very much looking forward to the results though.



Regards,
Léonie.

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Nomensa - humanising technology

Léonie Watson | Director of Accessibility
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