Re: Microsoft make an article about alt text...

On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 11:29:32PM +0800, Harry Woodrow wrote:

> But each of the images are clearly identified with their figure number in
> the html and good and bad text equivalents are given.

  If you refer to the page that Tom Gilder posted an URL to, then what appears
  on the screen - and I am sighted - is:

   Rate this page: 9 users
   [FF3300.gif] [FF3300.gif] [FF3300.gif] [ts.gif] [ts.gif] [ts.gif]
    2.2 out of 5

  The output on a theoretical - I have none, hence theoretical - Braille or
  Speech system might be interesting, if not rich in content.

  "Rate this page: nine users left bracket eff eff thirtythree zero zero
   dot gif right bracket eff eff ... "



> Isn't the purpose of accessibility that the site can be accessed.  Or is it
> a slavish technical excercise.

  Yes, it can be accessed - but it isn't accessible. If someone read the
  above to me, I'd be rather put off about the rest of the content. Granted,
  it is a minor detail since the images in question exist only at the top
  and the rest is quite readable, but it is still an example of
  misunderstanding the idea of accessibility.

  Sure, a person in a wheelchair CAN get into a store even if the entrance
  is not explicitly created to accomodate wheelchair access - for instance
  if 3-4 strong fellows carry him or her. That doesn't mean the store is
  *accessible*, even if he/she can get into it.

  Making a site accessible *isn't* a technical exercise - it is about making
  a site work so that noone needs to go through extra loops just to extract
  the content they come for. I can't imagine having to listen to all those
  filenames on a speech system just to get to the content below, in particular
  when adding an empty ALT-text is such an easy thing to do.

  Though ... personally I find their use of BLOCKQUOTE worse. Had I as a
  user added something like:

   BLOCKQUOTE {
    cue-before: url(AndIQuote.wav) ;
   }

  to a personal stylesheet, that page might get awfully confusing ...

-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Saturday, 23 March 2002 13:46:51 UTC