WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Alt text

for

From: Michael Roush
Date: Mar 2, 2003 7:55PM

I can't speak for JAWS, but I know that including the period helps make my pages make more sense with Simply Web 2000, Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000, for just the reason you mentioned. Otherwise, something like this example:
<xmp>
<img src="moon.jpg" alt="Earth's moon at first quarter">Earth has one moon.
</xmp>
gets read as "[image.] Earth's moon at first quarter earth has one moon." Now, should the software "know" that there ought to be a pause after it finishes speaking the alternate text? Arguably so. But, the fact is that it may not. I try to include periods in all my ALT attributes for that reason. Screen readers pause at appropriate punctuation in alt text just as they do in main content text.

Michael Roush
<EMAIL REMOVED>
----- Original Message -----
From: Kathy Cercone
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 12:58 PM
Subject: Alt text


Hello,

I am new to this list and working on a presentation about Section 508. I am a doctoral student and may be doing my dissertation on some aspect of web accessibility and Higher education and Learning Management Systems. More specifically : Faculty training in Web Accessibility using WebCT (there is none for the most part)



I have taken a course on accessibility and help fix pages so that they are accessible. I have some knowledge, but need more. I am not a techie but physical therapist and biology professor.



My question is:

For this presentation, I am developing a self training module and have a question about ALT text.