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Re: Alt Tags length and Content

for

From: Terence de Giere
Date: Aug 9, 2003 5:19PM

Maybe putting the W3C WCAG icons on an 'about this site' page might be
OK, and leave them off everywhere else. At least on such a page a clear
explanation of what they mean might not be out of place.

Note that the use of the icons indicate a *claim* of conformance, not a
certification:

Pages bearing this logo indicate a claim of conformance by the
page author or content provider to conformance level Triple-A of
the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, including all
Priority 1, Priority 2, and Priority 3 checkpoints defined in
the Guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
explain how to make Web content accessible to people with
disabilities. Conformance to these Guidelines will help make the
Web more accessible to users with disabilities and will benefit
all users.

Claims are not verified by W3C. Content providers are solely
responsible for the use of these logos.

Considering how much we disagree among ourselves at times, and how some
of the tools we use also disagree on conformance, it would be difficult
to come up with a foolproof method that would actually certify that a
web site is accessible, according to the various guidelines available.

Maybe these icons should have a longdesc and a 'd' link. The problem
with the W3C icons alternate text is they are loaded with abbreviations
or acronyms (which is which?) which, if explained, would make the alt
text way to long, and if unexplained, make the alt text somewhat opaque
as to meaning for the average user. Further one cannot use ABBR and
ACRONYM elements in alternate text.

Terence de Giere
<EMAIL REMOVED>




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