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Graphical heading & Alt-text

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Jul 15, 2013 1:32PM

A question from a government client of ours prompted this post.

She designs a complex, highly-designed, visually-rich magazine for children
and she's using InDesign for layout, and then exporting to PDF. She's and
her agency are very committed to making accessible educational materials.

Here's the accessibility problem. There is a page that uses graphical text
for the page's main heading, what should be <H1> if it was live text. For
the visual appearance she wants, the text must be turned into a graphic to
produce the appearance, so she then puts Alt-text on the graphical text.

Questions:

1) Should it be Alt-text or Actual text on the graphic?

2) How can we let the reader know this acts as a <H1>? Because it's a
graphic, it's tagged as a <figure> tag, not an <H1> tag.

What are your thoughts?

This problem is just one of the many obstacles and software shortcomings
InDesign and Acrobat users face as they try to convert their layout designs
to either an accessible PDF or an accessible eBook.

-Bevi Chagnon



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