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RE: evaluating Web accessibility software

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Jul 25, 2003 1:25PM

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:

> Jon wrote:
>
> > 8. ... Note: ALT for AREA element is not rendered by any
> > major browser,
> > so should be considered and inaccessible technique, unless there are
> > redundant text links in the document.
>
> What about the TITLE attribute in the AREA element?

It specifies an optional advisory title for an element, as for other
elements. It could be an auxiliary hint, or something.

> Might that not be used as a replacement for ALT?

That's not its job at all. And you cannot rely on TITLE rendering
in principle (it's just advisory, by definition) or in practice
(implementations vary from awful to poor).

The short story of image maps is:
1. Don't use them. Use links, Luke.
2. Well, if you have something that is inherently visual
and two-dimensional, like a geographic map, things
get different. Then specify ALT attributes as a matter
of principle but _also_ write an alternative set of textual
links, if possible. Maybe on a separate linked page.

The long story is "Tooltips and alt texts for image maps" at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/mapalt.html

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


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