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From: John Britsios
Date: Tue, Aug 05 2003 2:45PM
Subject: Alt Tags length
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Hello!

Can someone tell how many characters including spaces may someone use for ALT tags??
I ask, while someone told me that JAWS reads up to 60.

Thanks in advance, for your help

John S. Britsios,
Web Accessibility and Usability Consultant


P.S. If you have a minute, please visit the "Webnauts Net Accessibility and Usability Initiative" forum at:
http://www.webnauts.net/phpBB2/index.php

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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Aug 05 2003 3:18PM
Subject: Re: Alt Tags length
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On Tue, 5 Aug 2003, John Britsios wrote:

> Can someone tell how many characters including spaces may someone use
> for ALT tags??
> I ask, while someone told me that JAWS reads up to 60.

There's no upper limit in principle, but practical considerations suggest
that we should try to keep alt attribute values shorter than 50
characters. There are some notes on this at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/alt.html#length
and they actually relate to visible presentation of alt attributes.

This does not mean that essential information should be truncated. If an
adequate replacement for an image requires more than 50 characters,
the author should consider other approaches, like making the image
a link to a file containing a textual equivalent.

I just downloaded JAWS 4.5 manual via
http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_support/doc_screenreaders.asp
and as far as I can see, on the basis of a quick look, I would say that
there's no limitation on length there. At least not in the part where I
would expect to find a note on a limitation, namely in "Graphics
Options", which explains that you make JAWS read primarily the title
attribute of an image, or primarily the alt attribute (this is the
default), or primarily the onmouseover tooltip, or use the longest of
these. - But older versions might have limitations.

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


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From: Jericho
Date: Tue, Aug 05 2003 5:23PM
Subject: Alt Tags length and Content
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While we are on the subject of Alt tags...

I have noticed that some web sites that use graphical text buttons use alt
text that is very wordy, like "This link will take you to our contacts page
where you can find our email address and phone number", for a button that
simply says CONTACT US. I work with people who use voice recognition to
browse the web and they find this very annoying because they assume that you
would say "Contact Us" to follow the link. Also, screen readers must read
all this verbiage every time that link is passed.

Is there some common standard on this?

Joyce Kennedy
Jericho Consulting

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Aug 05 2003 10:31PM
Subject: Re: Alt Tags length and Content
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On Tue, 5 Aug 2003, Jericho wrote:

> I have noticed that some web sites that use graphical text buttons use alt
> text that is very wordy, like "This link will take you to our contacts page
> where you can find our email address and phone number", for a button that
> simply says CONTACT US.

That's bad practice. The wordy text could be appropriate as a TITLE
attribute value, not ALT attribute value.

By the way, if it's really a button, that's poor usability and has some
accessibility impact too. It should be a link, and look like a link.

> Is there some common standard on this?

The definition of the ALT attribute is that it specifies a textual
_replacement_ for an image. Although this definition has been obscured by
calling it a "description" at other places, Guideline 1 in WAI
recommendations is "Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual
content." In the given case, "Contact us" s a textual replacement, i.e.
equivalent alternative, whereas the wordy text is not.

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


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