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Thread: quick question on alt text
Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)
From: Shannon Urban
Date: Thu, Dec 05 2019 3:19PM
Subject: quick question on alt text
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I'm very familiar with alt text and its uses, but I wanted to confirm what
is considered "decorative". I understand graphics like bars and lines,
etc. would be decorative, but what about if the alt text of an image would
literally be the same as the text on the screen?
For example, "the boy asked his friend to hold the ladder for him" (that's
the text on the screen). The image is of the friend holding the ladder for
the boy - so alt text would be something like "boy holding ladder for
another boy". It's not conveying any new or additional information, so to
me it would be extraneous noise and should be null. What do you all think?
--
*Shannon Urban*
Director of Accessibility
C 608-290-7613
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From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Dec 05 2019 3:26PM
Subject: Re: quick question on alt text
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Yes, alt="" is appropriate here so long as the content of the image is
conveyed via adjacent or nearby text, and so long as the image is not the
only thing within a link.
Thanks,
Jared
From: Colin Osterhout
Date: Thu, Dec 05 2019 3:29PM
Subject: Re: quick question on alt text
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I'm thinking that aria-labelledby would be appropriate in this context as
well if the items weren't immediately adjacent.
On Thu, Dec 5, 2019 at 1:27 PM Jared Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Yes, alt="" is appropriate here so long as the content of the image is
> conveyed via adjacent or nearby text, and so long as the image is not the
> only thing within a link.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jared
> > > > >
--
Colin Osterhout
Website Coordinator, University of Alaska Southeast
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From: Murphy, Sean
Date: Thu, Dec 05 2019 5:20PM
Subject: Re: quick question on alt text
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You didn't indicate if the text and graphic are interactive or not. Is this the case?
Sean
From: glen walker
Date: Fri, Dec 06 2019 1:11PM
Subject: Re: quick question on alt text
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Since the image is not interactive (not contained in a link or button), as
Jared said, it can be considered decorative.
If you want to save three characters when typing, you can have "alt" by
itself rather than having alt="". The following two examples are treated
the same.
<img src="foo.jpg" alt>
<img src="foo.jpg" alt="">
See the first example in
https://www.w3.org/TR/html53/semantics-embedded-content.html#ref-for-elementdef-img%E2%91%A8%E2%91%A6
It mentions alt="" or alt by itself.
If the image were in a link, my preference is to hide the image and put the
label on the link itself. For example, the following will say "important
stuff, graphic, link".
<a href="...">
<img src="foo.jpg" alt="important stuff">
</a>
The user most likely doesn't care that you implemented a link as an image
and just wants to know what the link is for. It's a minor change but I
usually code it as:
<a href="..." aria-label ="important stuff" >
<img src="foo.jpg" alt>
</a>
Now when you navigate to the link, you just hear "important stuff, link".
You don't hear "graphic". It's a minor difference but I like the
"cleanness" of just hearing that it's a link and ignoring that it happens
to be implemented as an image.
However, one could argue that a low vision user might be able to see some
kind of blob where the link is and guess that it's an image and try to
navigate by images, in which case my example above would skip that image.
So it's a trade off. Either example satisfies WCAG.
The W3C has a decision tree on deciding if an image is decorative. See
https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decision-tree/
There's also further info on decorative, informative, and other types of
images at https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/
From: Jonathan C. Cohn
Date: Fri, Dec 06 2019 5:37PM
Subject: Re: quick question on alt text
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I 'believe there is an exception.I was recently reading that figure captions are not supporthat consistently, so alt text is required even when there is a figcaption.
Jonathan Cohn
Sent from my iPhone
> On Dec 6, 2019, at 3:11 PM, glen walker < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Since the image is not interactive (not contained in a link or button), as
> Jared said, it can be considered decorative.
>
> If you want to save three characters when typing, you can have "alt" by
> itself rather than having alt="". The following two examples are treated
> the same.
>
> <img src="foo.jpg" alt>
> <img src="foo.jpg" alt="">
>
> See the first example in
> https://www.w3.org/TR/html53/semantics-embedded-content.html#ref-for-elementdef-img%E2%91%A8%E2%91%A6
> It mentions alt="" or alt by itself.
>
> If the image were in a link, my preference is to hide the image and put the
> label on the link itself. For example, the following will say "important
> stuff, graphic, link".
>
> <a href="...">
> <img src="foo.jpg" alt="important stuff">
> </a>
>
> The user most likely doesn't care that you implemented a link as an image
> and just wants to know what the link is for. It's a minor change but I
> usually code it as:
>
> <a href="..." aria-label ="important stuff" >
> <img src="foo.jpg" alt>
> </a>
>
> Now when you navigate to the link, you just hear "important stuff, link".
> You don't hear "graphic". It's a minor difference but I like the
> "cleanness" of just hearing that it's a link and ignoring that it happens
> to be implemented as an image.
>
> However, one could argue that a low vision user might be able to see some
> kind of blob where the link is and guess that it's an image and try to
> navigate by images, in which case my example above would skip that image.
> So it's a trade off. Either example satisfies WCAG.
>
> The W3C has a decision tree on deciding if an image is decorative. See
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decision-tree/
> There's also further info on decorative, informative, and other types of
> images at https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/
> > > >
From: Graham Armfield
Date: Mon, Dec 09 2019 4:26AM
Subject: Re: quick question on alt text
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Earlier this year I did some research around screen reader support for
<figure> and <figcaption>. Sadly the news wasn't great, but you can read
what I found in a blog post:
https://www.hassellinclusion.com/blog/figure-figcaption-extended-alternate-text-screen-readers/
Regards
Graham Armfield
coolfields.co.uk <http://www.coolfields.co.uk/>;
M:07905 590026
T: 01483 856613
@coolfields <https://twitter.com/coolfields>
On Sat, 7 Dec 2019 at 00:37, Jonathan C. Cohn < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I 'believe there is an exception.I was recently reading that figure
> captions are not supporthat consistently, so alt text is required even when
> there is a figcaption.
> Jonathan Cohn
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Dec 6, 2019, at 3:11 PM, glen walker < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> >
> > Since the image is not interactive (not contained in a link or button),
> as
> > Jared said, it can be considered decorative.
> >
> > If you want to save three characters when typing, you can have "alt" by
> > itself rather than having alt="". The following two examples are treated
> > the same.
> >
> > <img src="foo.jpg" alt>
> > <img src="foo.jpg" alt="">
> >
> > See the first example in
> >
> https://www.w3.org/TR/html53/semantics-embedded-content.html#ref-for-elementdef-img%E2%91%A8%E2%91%A6
> > It mentions alt="" or alt by itself.
> >
> > If the image were in a link, my preference is to hide the image and put
> the
> > label on the link itself. For example, the following will say "important
> > stuff, graphic, link".
> >
> > <a href="...">
> > <img src="foo.jpg" alt="important stuff">
> > </a>
> >
> > The user most likely doesn't care that you implemented a link as an image
> > and just wants to know what the link is for. It's a minor change but I
> > usually code it as:
> >
> > <a href="..." aria-label ="important stuff" >
> > <img src="foo.jpg" alt>
> > </a>
> >
> > Now when you navigate to the link, you just hear "important stuff, link".
> > You don't hear "graphic". It's a minor difference but I like the
> > "cleanness" of just hearing that it's a link and ignoring that it happens
> > to be implemented as an image.
> >
> > However, one could argue that a low vision user might be able to see some
> > kind of blob where the link is and guess that it's an image and try to
> > navigate by images, in which case my example above would skip that image.
> > So it's a trade off. Either example satisfies WCAG.
> >
> > The W3C has a decision tree on deciding if an image is decorative. See
> > https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decision-tree/
> > There's also further info on decorative, informative, and other types of
> > images at https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/
> > > > > > > > > > > > >