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Re: FW: alt text size

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Aug 21, 2006 1:50PM

John Foliot wrote:
> 2) I also specify the fact that it is a Photo; I also use Image and Icon
> as descriptors - my thoughts are that they are consistent, concise and
> descriptive: a general "what" followed by a concise explanation:
>
> [Image - W3Q Logo]
> [Icon - Adobe Acrobat]
>
> Perhaps hard to mandate into a Standards document, but a consideration for
> "best practices"?

Interesting approach with the square brackets. I've found that JAWS reads
"left bracket" and "right bracket" in the default configuration. While the
motivation for this is visual separation thing, I would think that this
should best be done by the user agent, not by the introduction of
extraneous characters to the content. However, some text-only browsers
don't provide this separation. My own *opinion* would be that the overhead
of the brackets and corruption (perhaps this is not the best word) of the
content provides a negative impact that outweighs the benefit the brackets
might give to those using text-only browsers (a very small population - I
would guess much smaller than the screen reader population).

While the inclusion of "photo", "painting", or "icon" might be appropriate
in cases where it is important for the user to know the nature of the
image (for instance, a photo as compared to a painting), I think most
people would argue against identifying images as images within alternative
text. And I can't think of any case where the word "image" would be
appropriate within alternative text. The purpose of alternative text is to
provide an alternative to the content and/or function of the image, not to
identify the presence of an image.

As far as length, I think identifying a hard maximum is dangerous. My own
definition for alternative text length would be, "as succinctly as is
appropriate and no more than a short sentence or two." Anything more
concrete than that will likely result in insufficient or inappropriate alt
text. More important would be instructing what alt text really is and how
it is used.

I do find it interesting that there is still such a divergent opinion of
best practices for alternative text, the first principle of web
accessibility. I'm close to completing an article that will present my own
opinion of some best practices.

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org