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Re: JAWS 4.01 and Images as Text for Headings

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Feb 7, 2002 6:22AM

I played with this a bit. I discovered that if you use the object tag for
the image, JAWS picks up the text alternative (the object contents). This,
however, is probably not yet a viable solution since the "look" the client
wants would only appear in IE.

Alternatively, you can add a <span> to the header, immediately before or
after the image, and set the span style to visibility:hidden. Invisible,
but JAWS uses it for the header navigation dialog.

AWK

On 2/7/02 3:07 AM, <EMAIL REMOVED> ( <EMAIL REMOVED> ) wrote:

>
> Ethan Snyder wrote:
>
>> On a new web site, we will be using images to represent headings text.
> For example:
>> <H2><IMG SRC="news_header.gif" ALT="Company News"></H2>
>> instead of
>> <H2>Company News</H2>
>> I know that this practice is discouraged by W3C, but it is a requirement
> from
>> our client (for aesthetic purposes).
>
> I think it's fairly mildly discouraged if at all. You are correctly using
> an appropriate ALT attribute and logical markup. I don't find any specific
> statement against such usage in WAI guidelines.
>
> There are practical accessibility considerations, however, that favor the
> use of text as text rather than text in image format, even when the latter
> is used as above. In particular, the size of an image is fixed, so text in
> it does not adapt to the user-selected font size. Similarly, colors might
> be a problem. And then there's the point that - as you have observed - not
> all clients can really treat ALT texts as textual content. Sorry, I have no
> solution to propose to the JAWS problem when an image is used.
>
> But could you try to achieve the desired visual presentation in other ways?
> If you used style sheets, with suitable font-family, color, and other
> properties for the H2 element, the majority of users of graphic browsers
> would see it as intended, and the heading text would still be text,
> logically and as regards to what programs "see". Provided, of course, that
> you can find a set of CSS rules that reasonably well corresponds to the
> style now used in the image. This might be a problem especially as regards
> to font-family, since there is a very limited set of fonts that can be
> assumed to be in use in most browsing situations.
>
> --
> Jukka K. Korpela, erityisasiantuntija / senior adviser
> TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehitt