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Re: Question about image in the alt attribute

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Aug 2, 2014 9:03PM

Jonathan Avila wrote:

> What I would like to see added is an example
> where a person has low vision or a cognitive
> disability and desires to have the alternative
> text of the image displayed alongside with the
> image AND they are NOT using text-to-speech.

It is called *ALTERNATIVE* text for a reason. This situation would
morph alt into a type of supplementary or advisory text. The title
attribute (or better yet, actual screen text) matches much closer to
what you are seeking in this situation. If title is not sufficient,
let's come up with something different. But the idea that we should
change the purpose of "alternative text" to be "alternative text plus
some other stuff that some users might benefit from" is very
dangerous.

Also dangerous is the notion that the alt attribute should be used as
some sort of identifier of the presence of an image. We do, after all,
have an <img> element which does this. If a screen reader doesn't
identify the presence of images with alt="" (or more commonly, no alt
attribute) in any way, then this is a screen reader deficiency. Let's
not redefine and morph the alt attribute to do something that user
agents can and should do on their own.

Jared