Re: Alternate content for invisible images

ALT=""
ALT=" "

The above have their place, but, in general, are inferior to simple one
character text like:

ALT="*"
ALT="-"

All of the above are better than things like:

ALT="prettyball.gif"
ALT="horizontal line"

ALL of the above is better than simply skipping the ALT tag!

The problem is that there are sites that use ALT="" to parse through Bobby
or the W3C validator -- when they SHOULD be providing something meaningful.

It is quite debatable about when an image is "content free".  The consensus
is that it is much better to err on the side of verbosity than silence!

----------
> From: David Norris <kg9ae@geocities.com>
> To: Dominique.Archambault <Dominique.Archambault@hall.snv.jussieu.fr>
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Alternate content for invisible images
> Date: Friday, April 09, 1999 6:12 AM
> 
> My opinion is that if the image is not of enough significance for an
> alternate text description, for whatever reason, then something like
> 'alt=""' might be appropriate.  I'm not sure how some user-agents would
> interpret this.  Perhaps the single space would be more friendly toward
some
> UAs.  It will be interesting to see others' thoughts on that.
> 
> ,David Norris
> 
> World Wide Web - http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1652/
> Home Computer - http://illusionary.tzo.cc/
> Page via mail - 412039@pager.mirabilis.com
> ICQ Universal Internet Number - 412039
> E-Mail - kg9ae@geocities.com

Received on Friday, 9 April 1999 09:44:32 UTC