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

for

From: Steve Vosloo
Date: Aug 20, 2002 6:58AM

Thanks Jukka. I've forwarded your reply to the 2 people who developed
the content for the W3C WCAG curriculum.

Steve



-----Original Message-----
From: Jukka Korpela [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: 20 August 2002 02:45 PM
To: ' <EMAIL REMOVED> '
Subject: RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?


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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