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Re: Guessing ALT text for product images that are generated automatically

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From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Mar 1, 2011 3:15PM

James,
You are right and I agree they are fairly good examples of alt if they
are not links. I often have the filter off to scan through images.
Sailesh


On 3/1/11, James Nurthen < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Sailesh,
> I'm not sure I agree that the images in this (Humana) page have good
> alt text. If they were not also links I would probably agree with you,
> but in this page the four images you describe are also links.
> The text "Family happy about the security of having medical coverage"
> really doesn't tell me that the link is going to the page it does go
> to. Note: this link does not appear in JAWS 12 in its default
> configuration due to the "Filter Consecutive Duplicate Links" option.
>
> Regards,
> James
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 12:32, Sailesh Panchang
> < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Sorry about that url. Here it is again
>> http://feds.humana.com
>> Sailesh
>>
>>
>> On 2/28/11, Kerryn Sues < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>> Hello everyone and thanks in advance for your time and thoughts. We
>>> have had many discussions on this here, but would love to get any
>>> feedback.
>>>
>>> On our site we have images that are automatically pulled on to the
>>> page to illustrate a product. We don't know the actual content of
>>> these images -- e.g., the product might be a Bali holiday, but the
>>> picture may be a couple walking along a beach.
>>>
>>> The closest we can get is to *guess* the content of the image by the
>>> product title (e.g., ALT="Bali Holiday - 5 nights" or ALT="Bali") --
>>> we can't get as specific as ALT="Couple walking along a beach".
>>>
>>> So is it preferable to make a best guess at the content of the image,
>>> or to leave it blank with ALT="" or ALT=" " (seeing as other text
>>> content within the page describes the image).
>>>
>>> Thanks again,
>>> Kerryn
>>>