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Re: Question about image in the alt attribute

for

From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Aug 1, 2014 3:15PM

I've said it before: This is not a problem that is going to be solved by
trying to write a single set of rules or through complex technological
coding.

The "right" alt text depends on the text around the image, the caption and
how meaningfully it is written, what's in the image, and how it's used.

Instead of trying to make web sites adapt technically to an almost infinite
variety of people, technology and contexts, it's about writing for the
accessible web.

I think this may be why it's so important to do some level of
guidelines/best practices work within an organization, so that the norms
and style guides work for that organization's style and for the kind of
content they write. In part, the process of creating that group/team/org
style guide is how you make the rules your own.

I also think that a little usability testing is an important part of any
design and development (once you have gotten past basic accessibility
barriers). No matter how much we know about the audience, we are not the
audience. At least, we are just one representative of it. So it's a good
exercise to find out what actually makes a difference in real tasks with
real users.



On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Greg Gamble < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Sorry for stepping in here, but what do you mean by this?
>
> >
> In order to explain how a photo relates to the rest of the content, or
> vice versa, normal text should be used, in running text or as an image
> caption. After all, that text would be meant for people who see the image,
> not to those that don't. It's just unfortunate that there is no way in HTML
> to make such texts shown only when the image is shown.
> <
>
> Do you mean something like hover text or a watermark? Curious on what you
> were thinking about.
>
>
> Greg
>
>
>