E-mail List Archives
Thread: alt text size
Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)
From: zara
Date: Sun, Aug 20 2006 3:10PM
Subject: alt text size
No previous message | Next message →
Hi,
I am looking for documentation on maximum size of text equivalents. We are writing a proposal for a Web accessibility standard for the government of Qu
From: John S. Britsios
Date: Sun, Aug 20 2006 11:20PM
Subject: Re: alt text size
← Previous message | Next message →
Catherine,
to have cross-browser alt attribute length support, it is recommended to
use 60 characters including spaces, and the text should not break.
Best regards,
John
--
John S. Britsios
Web Architect & Marketing Consultant
Webnauts Net (Main Office)
Koblenzer Str. 37A
D-33613 Bielefeld
Webnauts Net (U.S. Office)
5 Ivanhoe Drive
Urbana IL 61802
Email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web address: http://www.webnauts.net
zara wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am looking for documentation on maximum size of text equivalents. We are writing a proposal for a Web accessibility standard for the government of Qu
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mon, Aug 21 2006 12:50AM
Subject: Re: alt text size
← Previous message | Next message →
On Sun, 20 Aug 2006, zara wrote:
> I am looking for documentation on maximum size of text equivalents.
I first thought that you are referring to the font size of alt texts,
which tends to be rather small, defeating much of their usefulness to
sighted users. But apparently you refer to the _length_ of alt texts.
Roughly speaking, the alt text length should vary from zero to about
twenty characters in typical cases. Anything longer is quite often a
misguided and misguiding attempt at describing what there is in a picture,
rather than proving a text _equivalent_ to it. If an image would need a
longer alt text, then the alt attribute is probably not a sufficient
method for conveying the message of the image.
No strict limits should be imposed, but as a rough rule of thumb,
the text should usually be 0 - 20 characters, but it can be up to 50
characters in some cases, but anything longer than that will create
considerable problems. For a longer explanation, including notes on the
"magic" limit of 50 characters, see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/alt.html#length
(Of course, if you _only_ think about people who use nonvisual browsers,
things are different. But I don't think such a limited scope is suitable.)
> We are writing a proposal for a Web accessibility standard for the
> government of Qu
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, Aug 22 2006 11:20AM
Subject: Re: alt text size
← Previous message | No next message
John S. Britsios wrote:
> to have cross-browser alt attribute length support, it is recommended to
> use 60 characters including spaces, and the text should not break.
Not that I doubt you, but...do you have any collated evidence on this?
(i.e. test cases and a list of browsers which have problems with the alt)
--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re