WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Alt Text

for

From: John Foliot
Date: Feb 25, 2010 1:18PM

What kind of graphic? To me, there's a huge difference between an image
and a photo in my mind, and a chart versus an icon. Is this distinction
important?

JF

> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto:webaim-forum-
> <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
> Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 11:04 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Alt Text
>
> But JAWS announces it's a graphic anyway, why duplicate it?
>
> cheers
>
> Geof
>
> At 01:55 PM 2/25/2010, you wrote:
> >Bevi Chagnon | PubCom wrote:
> > >
> > > From my research and testing, I've found that a quick identifier in
> the
> > > ALT
> > > text helps a) quickly convey the information to the user, and b)
> reduces
> > > the
> > > number of words I need to use.
> > > Some examples.
> > > Photo: sunset in Rocky Mountain forest.
> > > Logo: U.S. Forest Service.
> > > Pie chart: Number of blue widgets sold in 2009, by sales quarter.
> (This
> > > sample would also get a longdesc attribute to provide the chart's
> > > details.)
> >
> >I would echo agreement with Bevi's 'pattern' here, and have suggested
> it
> >in the past as a best practices guideline. Additionally, I 'wrap' the
> alt
> >text in [square brackets], for times when images might be disabled for
> >sighted users, and the image 'interrupts' or skews text flow (or might
> >seem redundant to some users). For example:
> >
> >[Photo: Jared Smith] Jared Smith is the Director of WebAIM...
> >
> >As opposed to:
> >
> >Jared Smith Jared Smith is the Director of WebAIM...
> >
> >Just a suggestion however.
> >
> >
> > > I use a colon to separate the identifier from the text so that it
> pauses
> > > the
> > > screen reader for blind users, and also makes grammatical sense to
> > > sighted users.
> >
> >Yup, some common identifiers I use are: [Photo: ], [Icon: ],
> [Graphic:
> >], [Chart: ], etc.
> >
> >JF
> >
> >
> >
> >