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Thread: RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Mon, Aug 19 2002 6:18AM
Subject: RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?
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= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:
> Actually, I would question why they [brackets around an ALT
> attribute value] are used. I've not seen it written
> anywhere to use brackets - have I missed something?
There's probably no official recommendation to use them. Sometimes brackets
are recommended when there is a sequence of images (e.g., a navbar) in order
to make the ALT texts appear as separate instead of running together. What I
suggested is more of a logical move, and something that people have used,
often intuitively. When alt="zap" says 'use the text string zap in place of
this image', then what would you do when zap is not an adequate replacement
for the image, only a description of it? Using brackets or parentheses
sounds rather natural.
For example, if an image is a photo of a building, then a real ALT text
would express in words what the image is intended to say in the context
where it appears, such as saying a few words about the appearance of the
building. Quite often we cannot write such ALT texts, for practical and
other reasons, and then we resort to descriptions.
Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe people can distinguish between real ALT texts and
mere descriptions by intuition. In some cases it's pretty obvious;
alt="Photo of Jukka Korpela" can hardly be mistaken so that those four words
would be taken as an adequate replacement for the image. But there might be
other cases that are less obvious.
Consider the text "[Schroedinger's equation]". To me, this would communicate
the idea that this is refers to an image that actually shows the equation.
Without the brackets, how could I know, without knowing that the text is an
ALT text for an image, that the document actually contains the equation
instead of just mentioning it? Sorry that I can't explain this better. What
I'm trying to say might be this: Good use of ALT texts should make the
document completely understandable in no-images mode without knowing or
guessing that some texts are actually ALT texts for images. Using
descriptive texts as such does not satisfy this.
--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi
Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399
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From: Leo Smith
Date: Tue, Aug 20 2002 7:19AM
Subject: RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?
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From: Steve Vosloo
Date: Tue, Aug 20 2002 8:08AM
Subject: RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?
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Not a bad idea ... the downside is communicating these things to the
user. It would have to be explained immediately and very clearly --
probably on the Accessibility site of a page, which would need to be
linked to from every page.
The explanation consideration is more usability and accessibility, but
vitally important.
-----Original Message-----
From: Leo Smith [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: 20 August 2002 04:13 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: RE: Is "this-or-that logo" adequate in an ALT text?
I think this is a useful idea - that is, when the ALT text is not a
complete replacement for the image, but rather expresses the _idea_ of
the graphic or image, then placing it in [ ] in this case might be a
good way to differentiate between these two scenarios.
Therefore, in the case of a logo that graphically displays the following
text: Some Company
then a possible solution is alt="Some Company [logo]"
Here, the literal information displayed by the image is not within the
square parentheses; the descriptive, idea conveying information is.
What do others think about this?
leo.
> There's probably no official recommendation to use them. Sometimes
> brackets are recommended when there is a sequence of images (e.g., a
> navbar) in order to make the ALT texts appear as separate instead of
> running together. What I suggested is more of a logical move, and
> something that people have used, often intuitively. When alt="zap"
> says 'use the text string zap in place of this image', then what would
> you do when zap is not an adequate replacement for the image, only a
> description of it? Using brackets or parentheses sounds rather
> natural.
>
Consider the text "[Schroedinger's equation]". To me, this would
> communicate the idea that this is refers to an image that actually
> shows the equation. Without the brackets, how could I know, without
> knowing that the text is an ALT text for an image, that the document
> actually contains the equation instead of just mentioning it? Sorry
> that I can't explain this better. What I'm trying to say might be
> this: Good use of ALT texts should make the document completely
> understandable in no-images mode without knowing or guessing that some
> texts are actually ALT texts for images. Using descriptive texts as
> such does not satisfy this.
>
> --
> J
Leo Smith
Web Designer/Developer
USM Office of Publications and