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Re: Useful Alt Text?

for

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Jun 16, 2011 9:24AM

Just out of curiosity, I am a poor quality assurance kind of reviewer on
this topic, but why does this seem so difficult for so many?
Just ask yourself:
What would you need to hear to know what the non-text element is, or
what it is on the page for?
And you should arrive at what goes in alt-text.
I am a poor reviewer because I am a very very long time screen reader
user, so know what I expect or want, but it boils down to what makes
sense, not more than makes sense, or less. It is not that hard to
figure out folks, or at least shouldn't be.


Don't repeat alt text would be a general rule of thumb for me--as you
said about the icon. If the icon isn't really serving purpose that
isn't already met by the alt text on the link, make a null tag and keep
moving--you'll be fine.

Allen Hoffman





-----Original Message-----
From: McDonald, Jennifer [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 2:08 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Useful Alt Text?

If your webpage has an icon (not a link) in front of a "Read More" link,
does that icon need to have alt text? When I run the page through JAWS
it seems overly verbose to me. What is read is: "Graphic - read more
image (which is the alt text at this time) - Link - Read More".

Is this useful to screen reader users? I would probably would not call
this a "meaningful" image and thus provide an empty alt. Would doing
this be detrimental to anyone? Just checking before I make that
recommendation.

-Jeni

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