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Thread: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)
From: Angela French
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 5:19PM
Subject: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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Hello,
Is there a character count for alt attribute values for screen readers to read it all, or do they truncate?
Thank you,
Angela French
Internet Specialist
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
From: Kelly Lupo
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 9:03AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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As far as I know, it reads everything. That said, I had attended a webinar
for creation of accessible materials where a question (mine!) was addressed
regarding how long alt-text *should* be. The presenter said that on
average, anything more than 100 characters (not words) often starts to
become cumbersome to the user of a screen-reader.
I'm not sure what industry standard is on this (I'm very much a newb), but
that was what I have been told!
Kelly
On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:19 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Is there a character count for alt attribute values for screen readers to
> read it all, or do they truncate?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Angela French
> Internet Specialist
> Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
> 360-704-4316
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;
> www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
>
> > > > >
From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 9:23AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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A major problem with Alt text is the fact that it is not structured content. This has to be taken into account, as a user of assistive technology could not easily navigate within larger amounts of Alt text. There is a reason we require good content structuring everywhere else, and as structuring can't be done inside an Alt text the text has to be kept reasonably succinct.
Olaf
> On 03.02.2016, at 17:03, Kelly Lupo < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> As far as I know, it reads everything. That said, I had attended a webinar
> for creation of accessible materials where a question (mine!) was addressed
> regarding how long alt-text *should* be. The presenter said that on
> average, anything more than 100 characters (not words) often starts to
> become cumbersome to the user of a screen-reader.
>
> I'm not sure what industry standard is on this (I'm very much a newb), but
> that was what I have been told!
>
> Kelly
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:19 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Is there a character count for alt attribute values for screen readers to
>> read it all, or do they truncate?
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Angela French
>> Internet Specialist
>> Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
>> 360-704-4316
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>> www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;
>> www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
>>
>> >> >> >> >>
> > > >
From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 9:49AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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> A major problem with Alt text is the fact that it is not structured content. This has to be taken into account, as a user of assistive technology could not easily navigate within larger amounts of Alt text. There is a reason we require good content structuring everywhere else, and as structuring can't be done inside an Alt text the text has to be kept reasonably succinct.
+1 to that!
Jonathan Avila
From: Steve Faulkner
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 9:53AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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this may be helpful:
How long should a text alternative be?
https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/WD-html-alt-techniques-20141023/#m5
--
Regards
SteveF
Current Standards Work @W3C
<http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/03/current-standards-work-at-w3c/>;
On 3 February 2016 at 00:19, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Is there a character count for alt attribute values for screen readers to
> read it all, or do they truncate?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Angela French
> Internet Specialist
> Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
> 360-704-4316
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;
> www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
>
> > > > >
From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 10:42AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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I once did an experiment on this and copied the Declaration of
Independence into an alt attribute many thousands of times. I set the
JAWS speech rate at maximum and let it run for several hours and it
just kept going. So the maximum alt text length is at least a few
thousand pages of text - certainly much longer than anyone would ever
consider.
Jared
From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 10:45AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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Did you provide your results to the CIA so that they could use this method as an alternative to water boarding? :)
Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)
From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Feb 03 2016 10:47AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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Dr. Seuss would probably work better
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Thu, Feb 04 2016 3:31AM
Subject: Re: character limit on alt attribute for screen readers
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...but as Olaf points out, that is just dribbling text. There is no structure to it or ability to navigate it...you just listen to it dribble.
The other thing to consider is that adaptive technology does have buffers and you don't want to test the limits of the buffers which may result in a crash of the adaptive technology and/or the application. I've had documents I can't open due to the amount of text in a single Alt attribute. I had to turn off my adaptive technology, open the document, remove the Alt Text and then start my adaptive technology again. I was then able to open the document without crashes.
An Alt Text attribute is not intended for essays. :-)
Cheers, Karen