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RE: "alt" text sizing?!

for

From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Aug 15, 2002 11:20PM

Michael R. Burks wrote:

> I prefer the pop up tool tip.
>
> It helps me enormously, I am not blind but I am vision
> impaired, and I do not like it when the browser does
> not pop the tool tip.

That's understandable, and we all may encounter situations where we would
benefit from the alt text, even if we can see the image sharply.

But this is really a user agent issue. The alt attribute has a well-defined
meaning: it is to be used when the image is not displayed. It is important
to accessibility to keep this clear. The idea of alt as specifying a popup
tooltip is harmless in many cases but potentially dangerous.

If some text should be available in addition to an image, then it should
appear as normal textual content, not in an attribute.

What browsers could do, and should do, is simple switching between "show
image" and "don't show image" mode, both for the page as a whole and for
each image individually. And naturally, when an image is not shown, its alt
text should appear according to the logical position of the <img> element -
by default as normal text, but e.g. in heading style if the <img> element is
inside an <h1> element. There's been some progress in some browsers, but
graphic browsers are still rather alt challenged, and the popup treatment is
part of the problem rather than the solution. In addition to appearing in
small print, the popup texts may vanish before the user has read it, it
might appear as one long string, etc.

Somewhat disappointingly, Netscape 6 doesn't seem to give information about
the alt text when I right click on an image and select "Properties". It
tells the Location (URL), the text language (!) if set, and the title
attribute if set, but not alt.

--
Jukka Korpela, erityisasiantuntija
TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehitt