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From: julian.rickards
Date: Fri, Jul 25 2003 9:05AM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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Jules wrote (and is replying to his own message):

> I know that the WCAG recommends
> D-links in place of
> longdesc (or in addition to for the possibility of future support for
> longdesc), does the WCAG also recommend text links in place of
> alt in area?

Yes, it does. I found it in Priority 3 - item 1.5 it states "Until user
agents render text equivalents for client-side image map links, provide
redundant text links for each active region of a client-side image map."

Jules


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From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Fri, Jul 25 2003 1:29PM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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Hi Jon,

I was surprised to read that you view Alt on an AREA as an "inaccessible
technique" - and this apparently because it is not rendered with images off
in Opera. It is rendered with the mouse over in IE and Netscape 4 (but not
Netscape 7 or OPERA, apparently) and it is rendered with HPR and the major
screen readers. Seems to me that that bodes well for the accessibility of
the technique. There are other html coding techniques that are not realized
in the visual browser that I think are fundamental to accessibility, like
the LABEL element, the scope attribute and the header/id combinations, to
mention a few.

Jim
508 Web Accessibility Tutorial http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm.
"Constructing Accessible Web Sites:" http://jimthatcher.com/news.htm

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Fri, Jul 25 2003 1:46PM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, Jim Thatcher wrote:

> I was surprised to read that you view Alt on an AREA as an "inaccessible
> technique"

I think the point is that _image maps_ have serious accessibility problems
even if ALT attributes are used.

> - and this apparently because it is not rendered with images off
> in Opera.

Well, that's a rather minor point, though disappointing.

> It is rendered with the mouse over in IE and Netscape 4

But that's _not_ what ALT attributes mean! They specify textual
alternatives to be presented when the image is not displayed.
Analogue: Would it be acceptable to omit a heading from display, making it
visible on mouseover only?

Besides, when an image map is presented so that the actual image is not
displayed, those browsers show no indication of the presence of any
alternatives. The user cannot even know how many areas there are.

> - - it is rendered with HPR and the major screen readers.

And Lynx, for example. Thus, ALT attributes are useful - actually,
mandatory, though for some odd reason the HTML DTDs don't enforce this.
But they are not sufficient.

Accessibility is more than accessibility to people who use certain
software for certain reasons related to their special problems.
To take a trivial, yet real, example: A person who uses a slow line for
economic or technical reason often wants to turn images off on a common
browser like IE. Or someone might want to turn images off for other
reasons. Or you might find yourself working with a copy of a page saved
locally but without images. And so on. When an image map is used just for
setting up a selection - effectively, a graphic counterpart of a link list
- which is the most common case, accessibility is reduced even if ALT
attributes are used.

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


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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Mon, Jul 28 2003 7:01AM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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Jim,
The users ability to style ALT text renderings in Netscape 6.x+ and
Internet Explorer is minimal, making ALT text unusable to many people with
visual impairments, requiring users to use adaptive technology (if
available and they know how to use it). If people are interested in
universal design, then it is easy to avoid the use of AREA (or any images
as links) or to provide redundant text links for the AREA links.

The problem with tool tips from an accessibility perspective is:
1. You need to use the mouse to point, not everyone can use a mouse
2. You need to know where to point, requiring the user to explore images to
see if there is a link. If I am visually impaired I may not have enough
vision to know to explore
3. Most people do not know how to style tool tips
4. Not all browsers support tool tips, therefore some people will not have
access

While you may argue that ALT for AREA is technically accessible in many
cases, I don't believe the use of AREA with only ALT text defined is
functionally accessible to many people with disabilities.

Jon


At 01:29 PM 7/25/2003 -0500, Jim Thatcher wrote:
>Hi Jon,
>
>I was surprised to read that you view Alt on an AREA as an "inaccessible
>technique" - and this apparently because it is not rendered with images off
>in Opera. It is rendered with the mouse over in IE and Netscape 4 (but not
>Netscape 7 or OPERA, apparently) and it is rendered with HPR and the major
>screen readers. Seems to me that that bodes well for the accessibility of
>the technique. There are other html coding techniques that are not realized
>in the visual browser that I think are fundamental to accessibility, like
>the LABEL element, the scope attribute and the header/id combinations, to
>mention a few.
>
>Jim
>508 Web Accessibility Tutorial http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm.
>"Constructing Accessible Web Sites:" http://jimthatcher.com/news.htm
>
>