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RE: Help on approach for annotating images

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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Dec 1, 2005 7:00AM

On Thu, 1 Dec 2005, Malcolm Wotton wrote:

> I have identified 3 types of image on my site:

As usual, it would be _much_ easier to discuss the problems if the URLs
were available.

> 1) purely decorative images (curvy borders etc). These are displayed using
> div tags and CSS they have no text associated with them

This should be no problem; alt="" is the only reasonable way (or, in
some cases, alt=" " or, if the decoration actually appears as a separator
too, alt="|" or something like that).

> 2) 'content' images eg posters advertising events. In this case the
> information (date time price etc) is replicated in the alt tag, but there is
> no caption. If you can see the image you can read the same info.

That's fine up to a point, though someone who sees the image but cannot
read the text clearly enough may have difficulties in accessing the alt
text. As a rule of thumb, if something is best said in text, say it in
text only (and add styling to text if desired).

> 3) 'other' :( These comprise mostly of photos of events, generally they are
> in articles that describe the event although the particular image may not be
> referenced directly. An example would be a picture of a dance group
> performing. A specific example is:
>
> 'Local morris dancers performing at Brighton'
>
> In this case I have used it as the alt text and the caption, as for readers
> that can see the image the info about Brighton would be of use. This is the
> case that leads to duplication. For something like this could you suggest a
> way forward . . .

I thought I did.

This is just the kind of images for which I suggested making the alt text
short, essentially an identifying name for the image. Depending on whether
there are other photos on the page, even alt="(photo)" might suffice, or
you might need alt="(photo of dancers)" or something more verbose. Just
remember that to most people who experience your page without seeing the
image, the alt text is basically a nuisance, though there should be _some_
alt text as a hint of the presence of an image when that presence explains
why the user sees or hears the text "Local morris dancers performing in
Brighton", which, in isolation, sounds like a truncated sentence that is
about to say something.

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