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Thread: Screen Shots and A11y
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: David Ashleydale
Date: Tue, Sep 25 2012 3:32PM
Subject: Screen Shots and A11y
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Hi,
My web site often has screen shots of pages as an introduction to some new
functionality, in addition to describing the functionality in the
accompanying text. The screen shots are meant to familiarize users with how
the service might look if they were to sign up for it. However, this is
very visually-oriented. I don't think there's even a very practical way of
describing a screen shot in ALT text. Or at least, ALT text wouldn't
provide the same purpose as the screen shot, which is specifically to show
the user what it will look like.
Would screen shots be considered "decorative" and therefore be given null
ALT text? Or should there be a completely different strategy that would
take the place of a screen shot for users that are unable to see it?
Thanks,
David Ashleydale
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Wed, Sep 26 2012 5:28PM
Subject: Re: Screen Shots and A11y
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Personallhy, as a screen reader user, I think trying to make screen
shots accessible at this stage, at least through alt text, would not
do me any good. I don't "see" the screen and I don't know how the
screen reader would interact with the page once it is ready from a
screen shot. So I vote for this being simply a link to a screen shot
(would not hide it, in case screen reader users want to print it, show
to colleagues or something else), but I would find this type of info
superfluous granted that as detailed a description as possible of the
spage functionality is in the text.
-B
On 9/25/12, David Ashleydale < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My web site often has screen shots of pages as an introduction to some new
> functionality, in addition to describing the functionality in the
> accompanying text. The screen shots are meant to familiarize users with how
> the service might look if they were to sign up for it. However, this is
> very visually-oriented. I don't think there's even a very practical way of
> describing a screen shot in ALT text. Or at least, ALT text wouldn't
> provide the same purpose as the screen shot, which is specifically to show
> the user what it will look like.
>
> Would screen shots be considered "decorative" and therefore be given null
> ALT text? Or should there be a completely different strategy that would
> take the place of a screen shot for users that are unable to see it?
>
> Thanks,
> David Ashleydale
> > > >
From: Joe Chidzik
Date: Thu, Sep 27 2012 12:47AM
Subject: Re: Screen Shots and A11y
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> Would screen shots be considered "decorative" and therefore be given null ALT
> text? Or should there be a completely different strategy that would take the place
> of a screen shot for users that are unable to see it?
>
> Thanks,
> David Ashleydale
[Joe Chidzik] I've produced a lot of pages that use similar sounding content; they contain screenshots of various UI elements within windows, on pages that detail how to carry out various tasks.
The screenshots are there purely as additional information as all the key info is contained the accompanying text. So when the instructions say press 'alt+f for the file menu', and then arrow down to select 'print', and press 'enter', the screenshot simply shows the file menu open, with the print option highlighted. I've just used a blank alt text attribute for these images as the accompanying text is the effective alt text. This sounds very similar to what you're doing, so perhaps a similar approach would work for you.
Regards
Joe