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From: ruth_k_marshall
Date: Mon, Oct 06 2003 8:20AM
Subject: RE: Blank alt attributes for images - best practise?
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Hi,

I refer to the Royal National Institute of the Blinds Web access centre
website at http://www.rnib.org.uk/webaccesscentre and in particular the
page at
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_alttext.hcsp#TopOfPage.
This page provides information on what to avoid and what to do in terms
of ALT text.

The Accessible Website Consultancy Team at the Royal National Institute of
the Blind (RNIB) used to recommend that "*" was used as the ALT text for
images which did not convey any information. The reason for this was
because screen readers could not pick up on "" or " " and read out of the
file name of the images.

Screen readers have now progressed in their development and are now able to
pick up on "" or " " and do ignore the image file names. Therefore, there
being no need to code images which don't convey any information with "*".
In some websites you can find many images which do not convey any
information, to code them with "*" can be very cumbersome to listen to e.g.
graphic star, graphic star etc.

RNIB's recommendation has now come in line with the WAI's which is "" or "
".

Hope this information is of some help.

Regards, Ruth



Ruth Marshall

The Standard Life Assurance Company
Dundas House
Group E-commerce Development
1st Floor
20 Brandon Street
Edinburgh
EH3 5PP

Tel: 0131 246 6376 ext 66376
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Web: www.standardlife.com




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06/10/2003 14:43 Subject: RE: Blank alt attributes for images - best practise?
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Just a suggestion but there are examples where images have used alt="*" for
similar situations.

This at least provides some content in the alt tag and doesn't seem as if
anything's missing that should be there.

It implies that the tag was meant to be left empty as opposed to being left
empty accidentally.


would like to hear everyone else's views on this...

-Jake.


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