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RE: Help on approach for annotating images

for

From: Malcolm Wotton
Date: Dec 1, 2005 9:00AM

Many thanks for that - I've understood it now :)

I agree with your rule of thumb "if something is best said in text, say it
in text only", I think it maybe would not apply here as some of the artwork
is very rich and certainly not possible to replicated in styled text. Being
an Arts site we would not compromise the artwork. Hence the use of an alt
text.

I'll be able to post a URL soon, unfortunately the site is being prepared so
is not live yet. The old site is available at www.pumphouse.info but has few
of the accessibility features we are building into the new site.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Malcolm



> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]On Behalf Of Jukka K.
> Korpela
> Sent: 01 December 2005 11:04
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: RE: [WebAIM] Help on approach for annotating images
>
>
> 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.
>
> >> -----Original Message-----
>
> In future, please quote or rephrase the part(s) of a message you are
> commenting on, rather than letting your E-mail program paste a full copy
> of the original at the end of your message. That's normal in discussions,
> and in human communication (except where contaminated by poorly
> designed office automation software).
>
> --
> Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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>