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Thread: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software

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From: julian.rickards
Date: Fri, Jul 25 2003 8:44AM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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Jon wrote:

> 8. ... Note: ALT for AREA element is not rendered by any
> major browser,
> so should be considered and inaccessible technique, unless there are
> redundant text links in the document.

What about the TITLE attribute in the AREA element? Might that not be used
as a replacement for ALT?

Jules


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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Fri, Jul 25 2003 1:25PM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:

> Jon wrote:
>
> > 8. ... Note: ALT for AREA element is not rendered by any
> > major browser,
> > so should be considered and inaccessible technique, unless there are
> > redundant text links in the document.
>
> What about the TITLE attribute in the AREA element?

It specifies an optional advisory title for an element, as for other
elements. It could be an auxiliary hint, or something.

> Might that not be used as a replacement for ALT?

That's not its job at all. And you cannot rely on TITLE rendering
in principle (it's just advisory, by definition) or in practice
(implementations vary from awful to poor).

The short story of image maps is:
1. Don't use them. Use links, Luke.
2. Well, if you have something that is inherently visual
and two-dimensional, like a geographic map, things
get different. Then specify ALT attributes as a matter
of principle but _also_ write an alternative set of textual
links, if possible. Maybe on a separate linked page.

The long story is "Tooltips and alt texts for image maps" at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/mapalt.html

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


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