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RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?

for

From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Aug 20, 2002 5:45AM

Steve Vosloo wrote:

> True. I actually got the technique from the W3C WAI Web Content
> Accessibility Curriculum:
> http://www.starlingweb.com/wai/wcag/sam2-0.htm. Quote ...
>
> If the image is linked, you must describe the destination or
> purpose of
> the link -- not the image, e.g.

Sounds illogical. And it's not what the W3C recommends, see
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#link-text-images
and note that the W3C logo on that page, and many other W3C pages, has
alt="W3C", despite being a link.

> <A HREF="home.htm">
> <IMG SRC="home.gif" ALT="Link to the Home page.">
> </A>

This probably postulates that the user agent is not able to present a link
as a link by default. I think such a deficiency would be alarming, and it
would be so serious that users really need to find a better browser.

On the logical side of the matter, the ALT attribute is expected to act as a
replacement for the image, not for some larger construct where the image
appears.

Besides, it is often better to write e.g. "FooBar Inc. (main page)" than
"Home page". Upon arriving at a page for the first time, we would normally
like to know what is the larger site that the page is a part of, rather than
hear or see the overused and ambiguous phrase "Home page". (Even if you know
what the site is, suppose that the page contains information about widgets
produced in production line Zap of factory Foo of company Bar. Now, does
"Home" refer to Zap, Foo, or Bar?) - This might mean that the textual
alternative would contain more information than the image. Maybe that would
be acceptable, to balance the multitude of opposite cases.

--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi
Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399


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