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Re: Best practice with ALT text

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Jan 7, 2016 12:21PM

> The third makes reference to "elsewhere on this page" which just seems a bit odd. All things considered, I'm thinking that option 3 is actually the most generally beneficial.



The definition of "Text alternative" in WCAG is

Text that is programmatically associated with non-text content or referred to from text that is programmatically associated with non-text content. Programmatically associated text is text whose location can be programmatically determined from the non-text content.

Example: An image of a chart is described in text in the paragraph after the chart. The short text alternative for the chart indicates that a description follows.

Note: Refer to Understanding Text Alternatives for more information. (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#text-altdef)



So that would indicate that you would need to reference the text from the alt text of the image.



However, WCAG conformance requirements allow for non-conforming page content on the page as long as it doesn't interfere and the page as a whole conforms. That is an image might not be accessible but somewhere else on the page there is an equivalent and the association isn't relevant for SC 1.3.1 to apply then the page could conform by simply marking the image as decorative and provide the equivalent. So I suppose it really comes down to SC 1.3.1 on whether the association communicated by the image and surrounding text is important and if so whether it is communicated in text elsewhere.



Jonathan



Jonathan Avila

Chief Accessibility Officer

SSB BART Group

<EMAIL REMOVED>

703.637.8957 (o)

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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Joseph Sherman
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2016 3:19 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Best practice with ALT text



Any way to avoid images of text? Is the same text on the web page next to the image, or somewhere else? How long is the list?



I think it depends on the context, content, and layout of the page. Do you have an example?











Joseph







-----Original Message-----

From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Alan Zaitchik

Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2016 11:23 AM

To: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >

Subject: [WebAIM] Best practice with ALT text







I have wondered about the following for some time.







If I am creating a web page which uses a graphic with text, e.g. a list of services provided by some client, and the web page itself has the SAME text, should I mark the graphic as decorative (ALT="")? Should I set the ALT attribute to the same text? Or should I do something like ALT="list of services provided by XYZ, presented elsewhere on this page"?



The first won't help users with limited, but not totally absent vision, who may wonder what the text in the image is. The second will inconvenience users employing a screen reader who now hear the same text twice. The third makes reference to "elsewhere on this page" which just seems a bit odd. All things considered, I'm thinking that option 3 is actually the most generally beneficial. What do you do? Please do not suggest redesigning the page altogether since we do not have control over the contents and page elements in many cases, alas.







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