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Re: A question about ALT attributes

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From: Shrirang Prakash Sahasrabudhe
Date: Nov 14, 2010 9:03PM

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 REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL 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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