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Re: Alt text (was VIKI - text transcodeing)

for

From: Keith Parks
Date: Jan 22, 2007 10:10AM

On Jan 19, 2007, at 4:28 PM, John Foliot - Stanford Online
Accessibility Program wrote:

> Now, viewing this in Lynx, you get:
>
> John Foliot
> John Foliot John has been at Stanford since...
>
> ...which "reads" funny. Contrast that with my modified alt text
> 'norm':
>
> John Foliot
> [Photo - John Foliot] John has been at Stanford since...

Ah, yes.

This type of thing was one of my objections to the LIFT transcoder,
when I saw a demo of that a while back. It extracted the ALT text
fine, but that text *out of context* was often quite confusing. But
the brackets plus the additional description works nicely.

[snip...]
>>
>> And how about things like ethnicity? [snip]
>
> Well... This is a loaded question, [snip...]
>
> All just opinion of course...

I appreciate your thoughts.

On Jan 20, 2007, at 6:20 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> If the reason is pure eye candy to evoke a certain feel/attitude (e.g.
> smily teacher to show that it's a friendly environment), can the
> purpose
> not also be reflected in the way the main copy is written, the tone of
> voice, choice of words, etc? Would this then not make the ALT
> redundant,
> as the same information is conveyed already?

That's the nice thing about pictures, to be able to *say* things,
without "saying" them. I design mostly for a college-aged audience,
and I'm sure there are ways to *write* something "hip" or "casual",
or "academic" when necessary, but communicating those styles through
images seems a clearer way to go.

(Besides, haven't you heard, nobody *reads* the copy anymore anyway. ;^)

For me, the same applies to the "design" elements of a site (color,
style, graphics) and their ability also to evoke feelings/attitudes,
all of which is lost when the site is rendered as text-only, whether
it's spoken text or on-screen text.

Back in the early style sheet days, when the mantra to "separate
content from presentation" was first spreading, I would argue with
people that sometimes that couldn't be done, that the presentation
*was* an integral part of the content of a site. (What's the text
equivalent of "bright colors" vs. "muted colors"?) And you could take
the same content (words, and maybe even pictures) and wrap it in 2
different presentation, and create quite different experiences for
the regular visitor.

Gee, I'm really veering off topic, aren't I. Just Monday morning
venting. Sorry. :^(

Keith



******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444

(619) 594-1046

mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.sdsu.edu
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications
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